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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/irelandmakingofb01fitz 



IRELAND 

AND THE 
MAKING OF BRITAIN 



IRELAND 

AND THE 

MAKING OF BRITAIN 



By 
BENEDICT FITZPATRICK 



With Map of Medieval Ireland and Britain 
(Following page 300) 




FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 

New York and London 

1922 



V 









Copyright, 1921, by 
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 

[Printed in the United States of America] 

Published in December, 1921 



Copyright Under the Articles of the Copyright Convention 
of the Pan-American Republics and the 
United States, August 11, 1910. 



(482 

JAN 12 '22 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 



?AGE 

Preface ix 

I. The Stream of Civilization i 

(i) Home of Western Learning I 

(2) Missionary Instinct of Irish Culture ... 4 

(3) Restoration of Civilization 6 

(4) Variety and Extent of Irish Medieval Work . 8 

II. Lineaments in the Conspectus 13 

(1) Founders of Churches and Cities . . . . 13 

(2) From Iceland to the Pyramids 17 

(3) "Incomparably Skilled in Human Learning" . 20 

(4) The Carolingian Renaissance 24 

III. Bridging the Old World and the New . . . 27 

(1) Ark of Safety for the Old Wisdom ... 27 

(2) Ireland's Educational Proficiency . . . .31 

(3) Centers of Intellectual Activity ..... 36 

(4) Textbooks and Learned Degrees .... 38 

IV. "High Scholars of the Western World" ... 42 

(1) Learned Classes of Laymen 4 2 

(2) Great Colleges Simultaneously Active from 

Sixth Century Onwards 44 

(3) "Philosophy" and "Wisdom" 46 

(4) Numbers of Students 49 

V. Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum 52 

(1) Intellectual Leader of Christendom . ... 52 

(2) Anglo-Saxon Students in Ireland .... 55 

(3) Special Colleges for Princes 57 

(4) Going to Ireland for Education Long Continued 59 

VI. Lay Schools and Schools of Philosophy ... 62 

(1) Professional and Lay Education in Ireland . 62 

(2) Synod of Drumceat, 575 A. D 66 

(3) Original and Independent Culture .... 67 

v 



Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

(4) Columbanus and Gregory — "Irish Ancients 

Who Were Philosophers" 70 

VII. Transmitting the Treasures of Ancient Learn- 
ing 72> 

(1) High Culture of Ireland a Living Reality . 73 

(2) Destruction of Irish Libraries 76 

(3) Irish Genealogy of Carolingian Schools . . 79 

(4) Organizing the City and Christian Society . 82 

VIII. Western Civilization's Base of Supply ... 84 

(1) Military Strength of Medieval Ireland . . 84 

(2) Land of Enormous Wealth 87 

(3) Celtic, Greek and Roman Europe .... 89 

(4) Ireland's Abundance of Gold 91 

(5) Exodus of Irish Scholars 94 

(6) Parallel Promulgation of Civilization and 

Christianity 99 

IX. The Irish Kingdom of Scotland 102 

(1) Two-fold Invasion and Conquest .... 102 

(2) Ireland of the Sixth Century 104 

(3) Ancient Pagan and Medieval Christian Ireland no 

(4) The Military Conquest of Scotland . . .113 

X. Columcille, Apostle of Scotland 116 

(1) Archpresbyter of the Gael 116 

(2) A Christian Cuchulain 119 

(3) The Facts of His Life 122 

(4) His Career as Monastic Founder .... 126 

XL Columcille and Brethren at Iona 131 

(1) The Moving World of Ireland and Britain . 131 

(2) Ritual and Ceremonial 134 

(3) Literary Work and Other Occupations . .136 

(4) Columcille and His Friendships 140 

XII. Death of Columcille 145 

(1) The Last Scene at Iona 145 

(2) Illuminated Manuscripts and Latin Poems . 148 

(3) By the Time of Adamnan 149 

(4) The Hibernicizing of North Britain . . . 152 

vi 



Contents 



HAPTER PAGE 

XIII. Irish Principality in Wales 157 

(1) Gael and Sassenach in Britain 157 

(2) Irish Clans in Britain 160 

(3) Irish Military Expeditions Abroad . . . .163 

(4) Irish Kings in Britain 166 

(5) Wales Medieval Irish Colony 170 

XIV. Irish Christianity in Wales 175 

(1) Power of the Gael in Britain 175 

(2) Wales Less Enduringly Irish than Scotland . 178 

(3) Irish Foundations in Wales 181 

(4) Irish Intellectual Intercourse with Britain . 186 

(5) Ireland's Imperial Status and Council of Con- 

stance 189 

XV. Reclaiming the English Tribes ...... 193 

(1) English Ignorance of Debt Owed to Irish . 193 

(2) Conversion of English Delayed by Neglect . 195 

(3) Reputation of English Aborigines among Civi- 

ized Peoples 198 

(4) Total Helplessness of the Barbarians . . . 201 

XVI. Roman and Irish Missionaries in England . . 204 

(1) Mission of Augustine a Failure .... 204 

(2) Irish Work Beginning of English Civilization . 206 

(3) Aidan Among the English Tribes .... 267 

(4) Irish Prelate and Anglian Kings . . . .211 

(5) English Natives and Their Rulers Sheltered and 

Educated in Ireland 214 

XVII. First Steps of the English in Civilization . . 216 

(1) King Oswin's Veneration for Irish Prelate . 216 

(2) Aidan and His Foundations in England . .219 

(3) Finan Succeeds Aidan and Wins Midland En- 

gland 224 

(4) Re-converts Apostate East Saxons .... 226 

(5) Rise of the Easter Controversy 227 

XVIII. Fruits of the Irish Apostolate in England . . 230 

(1) "Celtic" Usages and the Synod of Whitby . . 230 

(2) High Birth and Breeding of Irish Founders . 232 

(3) Frugality and Devotion of Irish Clerics . . 234 

(4) Colman Founds "Mayo of the Saxons" . . 236 

vii 



Contents 

C HA ITER PAGE 

XIX. Extending Operations Over All England . . 239 

(1) Sentiment of Idolatry for Ireland and the Irish 239 

(2) Among the East Anglians and West Saxons . 240 

(3) Irish Channels of Entry into Britain . . . 243 

(4) Fursa of the Visions 246 

(5) Diuma, Chad, and Ceallach in Mercia . . 248 

XX. Centers of Irish Influence in England . . . 250 

(1) Maelduf, Founder of Malmesbury, and Other 

Irishmen in Wessex 250 

(2) Founders of Abingdon, Chichester and Lincoln 253 

(3) Aldhelm and English Students in Ireland . . 256 

(4) Correspondence Between Aldhelm and Cellan 258 

XXI. Irish Tutelage of England 262 

(1) Irish Influence, More than Roman, Potent 

Among English 262 

(2) Theodore and "Molossian Hounds" at Canter- 

bury 264 

(3) Irish Plant Arts and Industries in England . 268 

(4) By the Time of Bede and Alcuin .... 271 

(5) Irish Scholars and King Alfred .... 274 

(6) Irish Literati Before and After Dunstan . . 276 

XXII. Current of Irish Civilization in England . . 280 

(1) Whole Art of England Transplanted Irish Art 280 

(2) Seed of Irish Law and Opinion .... 282 

(3) Anglo-Saxon, Mediocre Imitation of Irish 

Civilization 285 

(4) Incorrigible Brutality of English Aborigines . 287 

(5) Killing English Learning at Its Birth . . . 289 

(6) Irish Authority Gives Way to French . . . 293 
Appendices 301 

(A) The English Slave Population in Ireland . 301 

(B) The Irish Province of Scotland .... 314 

(C) The High Monarchs of Ireland .... 334 

(D) Irish Kings of Scotland 336 

(E) Some Works of Reference 337 

lNDE * 339 



vm 



PREFACE 

THIS book grew into being as the earlier half of a 
work describing the efforts of medieval Irishmen 
to establish civilization in continental Europe as 
well as in Britain following the downfall of the Roman 
Empire. As the work neared completion it was seen that 
the activities of Irishmen in relation to the different 
peoples inhabiting Britain would find their best repre- 
sentation in a separate and independent volume. The 
relations prevailing between medieval Ireland on the one 
hand and medieval Wales and Scotland on the other were 
relations of a kind that did not subsist between Ireland 
and any other country. In both these countries of Britain 
there were Irish military conquests and political settle- 
ments as well as Irish cultural and missionary enterprises, 
and both Wales and Scotland endured for centuries as 
Irish provinces, colonies and political dependencies. 
Among the English the work of medieval Irishmen par- 
took more exclusively of the character of Irish missionary 
and cultural work on the Continent. Nevertheless the 
relations between Ireland and England in that era were 
relations of a special and peculiar kind, and if England 
before the so-called Norman Conquest was not a political 
dependency of Ireland it was in a true sense a moral and 
intellectual dependency. 

As long as England remained really England its people 
looked not to the Continent but to Ireland for that sus- 
tenance and support without which its uncertain civiliza- 
tion might never have come into being or might have 

ix 



Preface 

died almost at birth. Ireland, the mainspring of English 
civilization, acted also as its foster-mother till the in- 
vestiture of the land by Romance rule, learning, and 
speech, consequent on the invasion of the Norman French, 
made culture in England at last self-sustaining and self- 
perpetuating. 

Between the era of the Roman and the era of the Nor- 
man the Irish race was the master race in Britain, evoking 
the spontaneous homage and emulation of Pict, Briton, 
Angle and Saxon by reason of its rounded national life 
and rich and stable civilization, on which these exterior 
peoples were permitted to draw freely as the main reser- 
voir of their aspiration and development. Withdraw 
out of the picture Ireland and the influences that emanated 
from it and it is safe to say that the history of what 
are now called the British Isles between the departure 
of the Roman and the arrival of the Norman would be 
represented by a blank almost as complete as the vacuum 
registered between the arrival of the English in what is 
now England and the arrival of Augustine and Aidan. 

The part played by successive dynasties of Irish spir- 
itual proconsuls in Britain constituted, however, merely 
a series of stages in the vast apostolate which the Irish 
missionaries of civilization were carrying forward in 
almost every country of Europe. The account of the 
almost incredible work performed by them in lands other 
than Britain will be contained in a second book, now 
also nearly completed, to which the present volume is 
largely introductory. The two books will represent the 
first comprehensive attempt to describe the work of these 
medieval Irishmen. That work constitutes the crowning 
glory of Irish history, and as a service undertaken by the 
members of one nation for the benefit of members of other 



Preface 

nations is almost without a parallel in history. Had it 
been possible to credit it to the dominant elements in any 
of what are called the great nations of modern Europe 
a whole library would already have been written upon it. 
But being the work of Irishmen it has shared in the 
general suppression under which Irish studies have had 
to labor. I do not flatter myself that my work is ex- 
haustive or that my handling of it is worthy of the theme. 
But it is at least a contribution such as up to the present 
no other individual has attempted and will, I hope, serve 
as a belated monument to the memory of heroic precur- 
sors of our age, meet, many of them, assuredly to be 
ranged among the famous men, of whom, in the words 
of Pericles, the whole earth is the sepulcher. 

The work of Irish missionaries in England was neces- 
sarily of an elementary and preparatory character. On 
the Continent, among more highly developed peoples, the 
Irish schoolmen had opportunities of bringing into play 
that many-sided learning and skill and speculative force 
and ability for which no contemporary parallel could be 
found even in the East. Not only did Irish monks and 
clerics cultivate classical and philosophical studies when 
heathen philosophy and literature were anathema to 
Christian governors elsewhere, and when monasticism on 
the Continent, as among the Benedictines, meant merely 
flight from an apparently doomed world, but Irish lay- 
men also pursued learned studies and carried their learn- 
ing abroad about a thousand years before an educated 
laity became the rule in other lands. The continuous 
destruction of ancient Irish manuscripts', which has been 
a concomitant of the English ravishment of the country 
from the sixteenth century onwards, has made continental 
Irish manuscripts the chief witnesses to the manifold char- 

xi 



Preface 

acter of Irish intellectual activity at home and abroad. Yet 
the numerous continental manuscripts can only have been 
a small fraction in comparison with the manuscript litera- 
ture formerly in Ireland itself. 

Till the sixteenth century Ireland had probably the 
most fortunate history of any country in Europe. She 
escaped the devastating grip of Roman power. When 
German savages carried destruction into Britain and the 
continental Roman provinces Ireland remained a haven 
of blissful repose. She conquered and absorbed the Danes 
who had won a province of France and turned England 
into a compound of slaves. The turbulent and victorious 
French, who soldered rings round the necks of English- 
men and made England a pendant to the Norman crown, 
she bound by ties of devotion surpassing the affection 
of her own children. In the tranquil opening of the 
sixteenth century, from which her nearest neighbors could 
look back in suicidal gloom only on a thousand years of 
degradation and slavery, Ireland had behind her a 
luminous track, outdistancing the Christian era, of un- 
broken independence and freedom. The sceptered race 
of Milesian Gaels, the only northern people with a history 
and literature, whose least considerable families owned 
authentic pedigrees older than the claims of foreign 
kings, still held sovereignty in the land which they had 
entered during the great Celtic migrations of 2,000 years 
before. The system of the clan, the exact equivalent of 
the Roman gens, had been transformed with the estab- 
lishment of surnames in the tenth and eleventh centuries, 
and great aristocratic families, Milesian Irish and later 
Franco-Irish also, provided the land with its kings, its 
tanists, and its officers of state. No foreign conqueror 
had ever ridden rough shod over them. No domestic tyrant 

xii 



Preface 

ever broke the law and tradition that guarded their dignity 
as free sons of the Gael. To the sixteenth century indeed 
the Irish people knew as little about slavery as their 
nearest neighbors knew of freedom. 

Preoccupation in the tragedy of modern Irish history 
has blinded historians to the unexampled phenomenon 
of a nation that annihilated or absorbed every would-be 
conqueror during a period of 2,000 years. The French 
and Cambro-French warriors who entered Ireland from 
Britain in the twelfth century seemed to themselves to 
be entering a new world — "in some sort," they said, "to 
be distinguished as another world." They spoke better 
than they knew. From the Adriatic to the Irish Sea 
Europe was feudal and Romance. In Ireland they found 
a Europe that existed before Rome was, an original 
elemental world, illumined by Greco-Roman culture. 
It was the circumstance that Ireland was a world as well 
as a state, guarded by a broad and unquiet sea from foreign 
peril, that made supererogatory that central despotism 
which the hereditary slave-mind, adoring the emblems 
of ancient tyranny from which it has been physically 
freed, accounts essential to the fashioning of a nation. 
Ireland stands forth in the world of the West as the 
supreme example of a long-enduring nation. We can at 
this stage only speculate on what she might have done if 
left free to develop her distinctive genius. Part of our 
duty will be accomplished if we can throw light on the 
character of some of her performances during the days of 
her miraculous promise. 

This work embodies no attempt to write a history of 
Ireland during the centuries indicated. Events and 
institutions in Ireland are referred to only in so far as 
they bear on the activities of Irishmen abroad. This 

xiii 



Preface 

has involved some small description of medieval Ireland, 
of the seats of learning in Ireland, and of noted men whose 
work was accomplished in Ireland itself ; but such descrip- 
tion has been brought in with strict reference to Irish 
work in other lands. Any further consideration of the 
cultural development in Ireland would have been far 
beyond the scope of this work, and would have involved 
the laying under large tribute of the extensive medieval 
literature of Ireland, both Gaelic and Hiberno-Latin. 
The evidence on the other hand relating to the activities 
of Irishmen beyond the Gaedhaltacht will be found to be 
baseH almost wholly on foreign testimony. 

The references given in the foot-notes represent only 
some of the sources which have been explored. The 
volumes consulted might be numbered by the hundred, 
and I have habitually gone back to original and con- 
temporary authorities where these were available. In 
connection with the general subject of Irish medieval 
work I have waded repeatedly through the great collec- 
tions — Migne, the Rolls Series, the Monumenta Ger- 
maniae Historica, the various Acta, the proceedings of 
German and French societies and the like — and have fol- 
lowed every sort of clue through the borderlands and back- 
ground of my subject in whatever direction the path might 
lead. This however while indispensable is only second- 
ary work. To give life and unity to his narrative the 
historian ought to be able to write of persons and events 
with the familiarity and understanding almost of an 
eyewitness and contemporary, and this condition of 
illumination can be present only as a result of an unflag- 
ging interest in his subject and continuous meditation 
upon it. And tho this composition from its pioneer char- 
acter falls short of being an historical narrative, it could 

xiv 



Preface 

never have come into being save as a labor of love and as 
the product of continuous thinking and research covering 
a number of years. 

I have had no collaborators in this work and on dis- 
puted points germane to the subject have had to rely on 
my solitary judgment, but I have been the recipient of 
services for which acknowledgment ought to be made. 
And first of all I owe an expression of thanks to Mr. 
Richard Duffy, numerous suggestions from whom aided 
greatly in the final shaping of the work and who took 
on himself much labor of another kind. And thanks are 
due also to Mr. Liam R. MacEocagain, frequent dis- 
cussion with whom enabled me to try out some historical 
reconstructions; to Mr. J. Dominick Hackett, who on fre- 
quent occasions put at my disposal his facilities in the 
mechanical part of the work ; and to Mrs. Cecelia Walters 
Harrigan, who aided me in the work of revision. With 
this I submit the book to the public, hoping it will 
please some, resigned to the fact that it may displease 
others, knowing it to be imperfect as all things human are 
imperfect, but confident that in all essentials it is sound 
and true, and capable of withstanding every attack that 
may be made upon it. 

Benedict Fitzpatrick. 



XV 



Ireland and the Making 
of Britain 



CHAPTER I 

THE STREAM OF CIVILIZATION 

i. Home of Western Learning. 2. Missionary Instinct of Irish Culture. 
3. Restoration of Civilization. 4. Variety and Extent of Irish 
Medieval Work. 

i. Home of Western Learning 

A UNIVERSITY professor brought out not long 
ago a history of the Middle Ages in which the 
name of Ireland did not once occur. The professor 
did not dwell in the land of Laputa, where the academi- 
cians carry their heads tilted at right angles to their 
bodies, with one eye turned inward and the other on the 
zenith; but he had recourse to methods in favor on that 
philosophical island. Obedient to a political tradition of 
obscurantism he turned a blind eye to facts lying broadly 
before his feet while intent on others far away. There 
are few facts in European history broader or more distinct 
than the role played by Ireland in the early Middle Ages. 
In that period indeed the history of Ireland was almost 
the history of Europe. 

Elsewhere in Europe, it is true, men were born and 
lived and died, and generation succeeded generation amid 
the monuments of a once glorious civilization. But the 
human generation came and went much as the quadruped 

a— Dec. ax. • 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 



generation came and went. There was no growth, no 
development, little heritage received from the past, no 
increment transmitted to the future. Men lived as if 
in a sleep, and if they partly awoke it was as though to 
play roles in grizzly nightmares, in which thundered the 
crash of falling empires and the brute passions of man 
disported themselves in a drama of hell let loose. Intel- 
lectual activity, stability and progress found their theater 
almost in Ireland alone. The stream of civilization, 
which had gathered its waters from tributaries having 
their rise in India, Egypt, Persia, Assyria and other 
ancient centers, and which had run its broadest and 
deepest course in a channel carved by an alliance of Greek 
and Roman culture, had, following the inrush of bar- 
barians and the fall of Rome, once again become divided 
and deflected so as henceforth to run partly in the East 
and partly in Ireland. At the threshold of the Middle 
Ages the regions that recognized the sway of Constanti- 
nople became the heirs to Greek culture and the Greek 
language. But the immediate heir to Roman culture, 
and such Greek culture as went with it, was not conti- 
nental Europe but a land that had never bent to Roman 
authority. With the close of the period of antiquity 
Ireland became the home of western civilization and 
remained almost its sole home for hundreds of years. 

It is true that there remained something of the old 
Greco-Roman culture in Spain; but the survival was 
feeble and showed neither health nor strength till re- 
newed and cultivated by the Saracen invaders. It is true 
that in England also there appeared after its Christianiza- 
tion, an occasional exotic bloom of culture on the rank 
soil of a primitive barbarism. But English culture was 
only a pale reflex of Irish culture. It was a culture 

2 



The Stream of Civilization 



planted by Irish hands and that seldom blossomed except 
when Irish hands were there to tend it. The civilization 
of Anglo-Saxon England was not a self-perpetuating 
civilization. There were men among the early English 
here and there who raised themselves by prodigious effort 
above the mud and blood in which the mass of their 
countrymen dragged their lives. But they died in gloom 
and they had no heirs or successors. Schools of note 
also arose from time to time in England ; but they were 
short lived. Canterbury died with Theodore and Adrian 
who established it. Jarrow died with Bede. York, the 
most noted of the English schools, of which the chief 
ornament was Alcuin, had a life of hardly fifty years. 
But of the great Irish schools few fell by the wayside. 
Armagh, Clonmacnois, Clonfert, Clonard, Iona, Bangor, 
Moville, Clonenagh, Glendalough, Lismore, and the 
others, great monastic cities and studia generali, centers 
of all the studies and all the arts and industries of their 
time, well over thirty in number, with a huge train of 
lesser lay and professional schools, maintained their 
magnificent course almost to the close of the Middle 
Ages. Founded in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, 
most of them were in full vigor, despite Danes and despite 
conflagrations, when the first Norman and Angevin 
French, a century after they had taken England from the 
English, settled in Ireland toward the close of the 
twelfth century, and some of them endured till the begin- 
ning of the English devastations in the sixteenth century. 
Armagh, founded three centuries before Bagdad, was, in 
1 1 69, under the authority of the High King Ruadhri, of 
the Ua Concubhair dynasty, erected into a national uni- 
versity for all Ireland and all Scotland. 

In that age there had been nothing comparable with 

3 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

this sustained continuity in any land, save perhaps the 
wonderful succession of scholarchs in the groves of 
Academe from the time of Plato to the time of Justinian. 
The existence of these Irish schools, annually receiving 
crowds of foreign students, annually sending crowds of 
graduates and preceptors to other lands nurturing the 
entire western world through a thousand channels, visible 
and invisible, is almost the central phenomenon of the 
early Middle Ages. The literary output must have 
rivaled the fecundity of the Syrians under the Abassidae 
or of the schoolmen of the age of Aquinas and Duns 
Scotus, over a period more prolonged than was given 
to either. And Irish as well as Latin was the literary 
vehicle. The early medieval glosses extant in the Irish 
tongue, marvelously developed thus early to express the 
most delicate shades of feeling and thought, exceed the 
contemporary scholia in all the living languages west of 
Constantinople put together. 1 

2. Missionary Instinct of Irish Culture 

It is only in the nature of things that an intellectual 
energy so abounding should in course of time overflow 
the confines of Ireland itself and extend its operations to 
other lands. The field open to the missionary instinct of 
Ireland's Christianized civilization was assuredly wide, 
for from Britain and Merovingian France almost to the 
confines of Asia a wilderness of barbarism presented an 
almost unbroken surface. In the year 529 the Emperor 
Justinian had closed the school of Athens. But the schools 
of Constantinople were still flourishing and the relics of 
the Brucheion and Serapeum of Alexandria had not yet 
been swept by Arab hordes. Between Constantinople 

1 They have been collected in Thesaurus Palaeoliibernicus, 2 Vols., edited 
by Stokes and Strachan. 



The Stream of Civilization 



and Egypt the schools of Antioch, of Gandispora, of 
Nisibus and other centers formed a garland that bloomed 
with a luster almost comparable for a time with the 
splendor of the great establishments in Ireland. But 
their course, outside of Constantinople, was uncertain and 
the culture transmitted by them was communicable west- 
ward only over the area of Greek speech. In the lands, 
formerly included in the western Roman Empire, where 
Latin was the medium of Christianity and education, 
there hardly existed a school in the full meaning of the 
term, save such as had already been established, directly 
or indirectly, by Irish hands. 

It was during this period of transition and under these 
conditions that the work of what has at times been called 
the "Irish Mission" got under way. The counterpart to 
Greek and Saracen culture in the East, Irish culture in 
the West showed a missionary instinct almost unknown 
to the Byzantine and known to the Saracen only in the 
lust of military conquest. Then began that dispersal, 
which, in its dimensions, its passion and its potency, has 
since stood forth as one of the great enigmas of history. 
Pelagius the Heresiarch and Sedulius the Poet have per- 
haps been rightly acclaimed as the first in point of time 
of that streaming Irish host that was to continue to flow 
for nearly a thousand years. Harbingers and precursors 
of the great army that was to follow Columbanus in the 
next century, both of them probably from the Irish colony 
in what is now Wales, they gave the first proofs in the 
Roman theater of the mettle of the Irish intellect then 
in process of being Christianized. Following immedi- 
ately on Pelagius and Sedulius the stream is not readily 
discernible, but it is there, and it continues to increase in 
volume. In the sixth century it bears with it the founders 

5 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

of a host of monasteries in France, Switzerland, and 
Italy. In the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries it is at the 
high flood-tide. Irishmen arrive on the Continent "like 
bees from a hive," 1 they pour over it "like an inunda- 
tion"; 2 they come in "troops of philosophers," 3 medieval 
writers tell us. Then the stream grows thin again and 
finally disappears. Duns Scotus, in the thirteenth century, 
may be considered the brilliant ending, a splendid flash 
of the water in the sun, before the stream enters the 
ground again. But the stream had run for something 
like nine hundred years. What set it running? Whence 
and wherefore this noble procession of theologians and 
apostles, of monastic legislators and founders, of philos- 
ophers and schoolmen, of pioneers and martyrs, of monks 
and hermits, of architects and poets, of builders and states- 
men, of men and women, who compassed the orbit of 
human possibility in passionate energy of word and deed? 
What manner of men were they? Whence did they derive 
their culture? What motives prompted them? Whatwork 
did they actually accomplish? It is the purpose of this 
work to give a partial answer to these questions, in so far 
as it can be given by a general indication of their labor 
throughout Europe and a more detailed study of it in the 
lands within the immediate circle of Irish influence. 

3. Restoration of Civilization 

While there is much about these Irishmen that is likely 
to remain something of a mystery, we can at least seek 
to estimate their work. Their work and their mission 
had as end and result nothing less than the restoration 
of civilization. A mission so sublime was not likely to 

1 St. Bernard, Vita Malachiae. 

2 St. Bernard, Ibid. 

s Eric of Auxerre, Vita S. Germani, Praef. 

6 



The Stream of Civilization 



enter into the ambitions of men so contemptuous of earthly- 
glory. There was nothing of military organization about 
them, though much of military discipline. They did 
not gather together a vast intellectual army, and, with 
Ireland behind them as a base of supply, advance on 
Europe with a view to its moral conquest. Their methods 
were much less grandiose. They descended on Europe 
as single individuals or in groups, sometimes as pilgrims 
or travelers, sometimes as ascetics seeking a voluntary 
exile, sometimes as spiritual athletes in voluntary immola- 
tion, sometimes also as conscious teachers and preachers and 
traders in wisdom. One group had little knowledge often 
of what another group was doing. Masters themselves 
of all the knowledge of their time they became the natural 
leaders and instructors of the peoples among whom they 
went to dwell. Men gathered round them and their 
homes became the kernels of cities that were to be. They 
passed also from one place to another as true apostles, 
the living similitudes of the missionaries of civilization 
from the beginning of time. Their work has lived after 
them and will endure forever. They were the true makers 
of Christendom and usherers-in of the modern world. 
"They were," says a German writer, "instructors of every 
known branch of the science and learning of the time, 
possessors and bearers of a higher culture than was at 
that period to be found anywhere on the Continent and 
can assuredly claim to have been the pioneers — to have 
laid the corner-stone of western civilization on the Conti- 
nent, the rich results of which Germany shares and enjoys 
to-day in common with all other civilized nations." 1 

Christianity came to Ireland along a path already 
beaten by Greco-Roman learning in a period when the 

iZimmer, Preussiche Jahrbucher, 59, Jan. 1887, pp. 26-59; translated, "The 
Iriah Element in Medieval Culture," by J. L. Bdmonds (1891), p. 130. 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

isle of the Gael was in the full tide of military conquest. 
So in an inscrutable manner the military prowess that 
had carried the high-king Dathi on the heels of Roman 
rearguards to the foot of the Alps and almost secured 
to Ireland the enduring hegemony of what are now called 
the British Isles bent itself to the Christian yoke. The 
fierce intoxication of mortal combat on the field of battle 
ceased to allure the Irish heart, overtaken and surprized 
by the doctrines of the new religion. Instead, Christian 
temples and schools arose over the land and a new army 
of mental and moral champions succeeded to the warrior 
hosts of the Fianna. In their persons the Celt, the Gael 1 
and the Gaul returned as spiritual knights-errant to the 
insular and continental fields over which in ultra- 
Roman days ancestral Keltoi and Galli had wielded em- 
pire from history's dawn. And the area over which the 
Irish Gaels carried the evangel of civilization was not 
inferior to the vast region that knew the Celt as lord when 
he parleyed with Alexander, sacked Delphi and Rome, 
lent his dying body to the Pergamene sculptor, and fought 
his last continental fight with the legions of Caesar. 

4. Variety and Extent of Irish Medieval Work 

While there were very few countries in Europe where 
Irish missionaries and schoolmen did not dispense their 
services, their work differed in character, in degree and 
in result in each of them. Their chief work was in France, 
Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, England, 
Scotland, and north Italy. What is now called Scotland 
was the first theater of their operations and Irish mis- 
sionaries Christianized and civilized it while Irish sol- 

1 Gaedhal or Gael is the word in the Irish tongue for "Irishman." Scotua 
is the Latin word for "Irishman." Scotia and Hibernia are the Latin words for 
"Ireland." Scotland means "land of the Irish." See Appendix B. 

8 



The Stream of Civilization 



diers and colonists gradually reduced it, turning the old 
Caledonia into the Irish province of Scotia Minor, 1 or 
Lesser Ireland, which it has since in essentials remained. 
Irishmen »we re also powerful in what is now called Wales, 
parceling it out into princely estates "so that the Gael 
dwelt not less on the east coast of the sea than in Erin." 
The Irish ruled Wales as a military colony even in Roman 
times and it continued an Irish-speaking province from 
the second almost to the eighth century. The fact that 
in Wales, differing from Scotland, the evidences of Irish 
occupation have been in main obliterated, has made its 
former condition an obscure chapter in history. 

As the Romans left Britain there were repeated at- 
tempts by Irish military forces to conquer what is now 
England, and the Irish campaign in England was carried 
on almost simultaneously with the more successful cam- 
paign in what is now Scotland. The attempted conquest of 
England failed, partly because Irishmen were at this time 
being converted to Christianity and in their early fervor 
renounced their foreign enterprises. When the southern 
part of Britain became England, however, it was devoted 
Irishmen who rescued the English from their primeval 
savagery and heathenism and first brought them into the 
circle of Christianity and civilization. Augustine's mis- 
sion to England was an almost complete failure and his 
successors fled ; while for the greater part of the Anglo- 
Saxon period Irishmen taught and led the English. 
Where the Romans signally failed Irishmen signally suc- 

i The terms "Scotus" and "Scotia" -when used by Roman and medieval 
■writers, refer to the Irishman and Ireland. The term "Scotia" only came to 
be applied to what is now Scotland after the Irish had consolidated their con- 
quest and colonization of that country, making it part of the Gaedhaltacht. 
See Skene, Celtic Scotland, I. Intro, p. 1 seq. ; Hill Burton, Hist, of Scotland, 
I. 200 seq. ; Ossianic Society, V. ; Holder, Alt-Celtischer Sprachschatz, Bd. IT 
1902, col. 1406-18 ; Ussher, Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates, Works, VI 
266 seq. 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

ceeded. They built the first schools in England — 
Lindisfarne, Malmesbury, Whitby, Glastonbury, and the 
others. They ruled the English as bishops. They taught 
them to read, to write, to build, to work metals, and to 
illuminate books. They delivered them, as far as they 
were able, from the excesses of barbarism and taught them 
the truths of the Christian faith. They not only taught 
the English in England but they sent them by the ship- 
load to Ireland, where they were received, and provided 
with food, shelter, and education and sometimes with col- 
leges and farms without payment of any kind. Before 
the French or Norman conquest Irish influence in En- 
gland was all pervading. The English knew almost no art 
but Irish art, almost no civilization but Irish civilization. 
So that of the relics of the Anglo-Saxon period that have 
come down to us, there is hardly an object, whether a 
manuscript or a jewel, whether a piece of sculpture or 
a piece of architecture, that is not either wholly Irish in 
character or with Irish characteristics. 

Their work in other lands was equally noteworthy. The 
Irish were the first missionaries in Germany, and Ger- 
many had in the main been made a Christian land by them 
when Boniface, who has been called the Apostle of Ger- 
many, first arrived there. Near and along the Rhine 
they established the great monasteries which were to be 
the cradles of German civilization, St. Gall, Reichenau, 
Rheinau, Honau and the others. Columbanus and his 
disciples founded over a hundred monasteries in France 
and central Europe, many of them noble abbeys enduring 
to this day. But their field was wider still. Irish scholars, 
missionaries, pilgrims and travelers are found as far north 
as Iceland, which Irish mariners discovered, and as far 
south as Carthage and the Nile valley. They traded in 

10 



The Stream of Civilization 



the Dneiper valley and preached along the Elbe. They 
formed literary colonies in Liege, Toul, Cologne, Milan, 
Salzburg, Rheims, Tours, Aix-la-Chapelle, Verdun, 
Metz, Cambrai, Rome, Constantinople, and other centers. 
They sent out scientific expeditions to measure the Pyra- 
mids and to explore the Red Sea. They scoured the 
northern and southern seas for islands, and besides Iceland 
they discovered the Faroe Islands and seem to have known 
the Azores. 

In the Carolingian era they were teachers in every 
cathedral and school. They initiated and conducted the 
Carolingian revival, a movement of far more import to 
Europe than that later renaissance which has appropriated 
the name. In the ninth century their intellectual prestige 
was so great that a minister of Charles the Bald hailed 
them as rivals of the Greeks and it became the fashion of 
the literati of Laon to study the Irish language 1 and 
Irish literature as at Rheims Greek was studied under 
Irish preceptors, who in that age were the sole possessors 
of Greek learning in the West. In their scriptoria the 
Roman classics were reproduced and preserved. Alone 
in Europe in that age they cultivated pagan literature 
side by side with Christian divinity. The oldest of several 
of the Roman classics are Irish manuscripts. Irish foun- 
dations proved the great treasure houses of the master- 
pieces of ancient Roman literature, and the list is long 
of those Roman authors for whose survival we are in- 
debted to Irish scribes and Irish foundations. They were 

i We can best judge of the development of the Irish language at this period 
by the extant eighth and ninth century Irish commentaries and glosses which 
stand on a high leivel by comparison, for example, with old High German glosses: 
"We find here a fully formed learned prose style which allows even the finest 
shades of thought to be easily and perfectly expressed, from which we must 
conclude that there must have been a long previous culture (of the language), 
going back at the very latest to the beginning of the sixth century." (Meyer, 
Kultur der Gegenwart, part I, sect. XI, p. 80.) 

II 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

not merely the greatest scribes, but the greatest artists, 
miniature painters, metal-workers, stone-cutters and 
skilled craftsmen of their age. There is no more beautiful 
book in the world than the Book of Kells. The whole 
of antiquity, whether the Greek, Roman or Etruscan, has 
bequeathed to us no lovelier jewels than the Ardagh 
Chalice and the Tara Brooch. And altho these unique 
works of art were executed in Ireland itself, they supply 
ample evidence of the skill of the Irishmen who labored 
abroad for the intellectual and spiritual resurrection of 
the peoples among whom they dwelt through the teaching 
of Christian theology and the channels of all the sciences 
and all the arts. 

Thus over a wide radius — in the regions now called 
Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, 
Austria and Upper Italy — Irishmen and their disciples 
planted or restored the root and stem of Christian culture, 
drilling and training for future work the raw tribes who 
were to make up the great nations of the modern world. 
So Ireland fulfilled her mission in life, which the bene- 
ficiaries were to forget, but which in the sight of heaven 
was to be her crowning glory. "Ireland can indeed lay 
claim to a great past," says the writer already quoted. 
"She can not only boast of having been the birthplace and 
abode of high culture in the fifth and sixth centuries, 
at a time when the Roman Empire was being undermined 
by the alliances and inroads of the German tribes which 
threatened to sink the whole Continent into barbarism, but 
also of having made strenuous efforts in the seventh and 
up to the tenth century to spread her learning among the 
German and Romance peoples, thus forming the actual 
foundations of our present continental civilization." 1 

i Zimmer, Preussiche Jahrbticher, Jan., 1887, translated into English as "The 
Irish Element in Medieval Culture," p. 3. 

12 




CHAPTER II 
LINEAMENTS IN THE CONSPECTUS 

I. Founders of Churches and Cities. 2. From Iceland to the Pyramids. 
3. Incomparably Skilled in Human Learning.' 4. The Carolingian 
Renaissance. 

i. Founders of Churches and Cities 

|HE men that Ireland sent forth therefore were more 
than intellectuals and devotees. Had they been 
merely such they could not have got very far. 
They were indefatigable all-round workers — engineers, 
architects, painters, penmen, woodcarvers and farmers, as 
well as the most accomplished schoolmen of their age. 
Deeply learned and highly bred, some of them the sons 
of kings, and, like Columcille, eligible to the high throne 
of Ireland itself, giving their wealth as well as their work, 
they regarded no form of labor as too lowly or arduous 
that helped in the compassing of the ends they had in 
view. A versatility in cases verging on the miraculous, 
a faith and enthusiasm that removed mountains, and a 
courage lionlike in its intrepidity, would seem to have 
been the elements necessary for the accomplishment of 
the deeds recorded of them. Here and there all over 
Europe, on high tablelands or by the side of rivers, or in 
the midst of a desert waste, there rise to-day fair cities 
boasting large populations and all the refinements of 
civilization. How came these cities there? Often be- 
cause one of these Irish peregrini, trusting only God 
and his own arm and brain, struck out on a fateful and 
distant day into the trackless forest or across some wilder- 

13 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

ness and there in the heart of it drove his staff into the 
ground and made it his home "for the love of the kingdom 
of the Lord." 

First came the hermitage, and then the oratorio, then 
the monastery, and church, and school, a modified 
rath or lis or caiseal or caithir, after the Irish fashion, 
with people flocking from all parts to hear the wisdom- 
laden voice of the stranger. So a center of culture, of 
industry, and of commerce was set up, and roads were 
laid, and bridges built, and wells dug, and gardens 
planteo^ and clearances made in the woods, and herds of 
goats and cows and sheep and poultry were made to 
take the place of the wild animals that had greeted the 
stranger on his coming. And over all till death took him 
presided the stranger from far Scotia and a number of 
his countrymen who had in course of time come to him, 
dignified men with long flowing locks and painted eye- 
lids 1 and a serenity that nothing could ruffle, men who 
among themselves talked a strange tongue, not Latin 
though it resembled it, which the natives could not 
understand, but who talked to the natives in their own 
speech and seemed to them to be in possession of all 
knowledge and to be capable of accomplishing all things. 
And then at last when the stranger died and the people 
he had brought together began to credit their gain and 
count their loss, an unspeakable sorrow would fall upon 
them, and the lamentation would carry his fame to all 
parts. And a great cathedral would be built and his 
blessed bones placed therein, and crowds would come to 
venerate his memory. And so a new city would be born 

U striking peculiarity of the Irish peregrin! was their painted eyelids, 
but they also colored or tattooed other parts of their bodies. They were ton- 
sured in front from ear to ear and their garments were of white homespun. 
They carried staffs, leathern wallets, flasks and books. Pilgrims traveled 
usually on foot, but Irish travelers of rank, mingling pleasure with piety, 
traveled on horseback and with retinue, as in the case of Marcus and Moengal, 
described in the chronicle of St. Gall. 

14 



Lineaments in the Conspectus 

to the world and the seed planted by the stranger would 
fructify for ever more. Thus St. Gall, whose father and 
patron was Ceallach or Gallus, thus Lure, whose founder 
was Dicuil, thus Bobbio, whose founder was Columbanus, 
thus Perrone, whose father and patron was Fursa, grew 
into mountain villages or noble cities. Thus scores of 
cities and towns from the Irish Sea to the Adriatic — 
St. Bees, Malmesbury, St. Gibrian, St. Gobain, St. Die, 
St. Ursanne, Dissentis, San Columbano, San Cataldo, 
Altomunster, St. Desibod and Beatenberg, among them—' 
came into being under the fostering arm of the missionary 
Gael. 

A sacred fanaticism carried these tireless Irish pilgrims 
over the broad expanse of Europe, their tracks studded 
with hermit haunts and holy wells, round which rose up 
in the fulness of time noble monasteries and enduring 
cities. When the fiery Columbanus was expelled from 
Luxeuil, where on the buried heaps of a Roman city he 
had founded a lasting school and city, he wended his slow 
and tortuous way to northern Italy, and as he proceeded, 
parted one by one with compatriots who were disciples 
precious to him as life. Dicuil's failing limbs gave way 
as he accompanied the evicted superior to Besancon, and 
with his master's blessing he settled in a desert waste to 
lay the foundation of the noble monastery of Lure. 
Potentin was left behind at Soissons to become Abbot 
eventually of Coutances. Ursicinus 1 bade his superior a 
fond farewell at Basel and, penetrating into the passes 
of Jura, founded his great monastery at the foot of Mont 

iThe names of Irishmen abroad assumed a Latin form in the mouths of 
continental writers. Colum became Columbanus; CathaiL Cataldus; Siadhail, 
Sedulius; Ceallach, Gallus; Moengal, Marcellus; Muiredach, Marianus; Duncadh, 
Donatus ; and so on. A new sobriquet was given in some cases. Thus Comgall, 
founder of Bangor, figures as Faustus in one of the directions of Columbanus. 
Other forms were arbitrary, Ailill becoming Elias. "Scotua" meaning "Irish- 
man," was a common appellation. 

15 



Ireland and die Making of Britain 

Terrible. Ceallach, or Gallus, stricken with fever, aban- 
doned the fateful journey at Bregenz to found, soon after, 
the peerless monastery of St. Gall. Sigisbert turned aside 
at Coire to lay in a place of horror and vast wilderness 
the foundation of the Abbey of Dissentis. Fridoald, one 
of the last surviving companions of Columbanus, led a 
colony of monks into the wild Munsterthal and founded 
the monastery of Granfelden, united later with the her- 
mitage at St. Ursanne and the monastery of Pfermund. 

The disciples of Fursa and their contemporaries re- 
peated the marvels achieved by Columbanus and his asso- 
ciates. Their toil and agony and martyr blood hallowed 
the soil that has resounded in these days to the thunders 
of the most brutal war in history. Wherever Fursa moved 
the people kissed his footsteps; at his death kings an< 
princes vied for his remains. Treasure untold accumu- 
lated around his shrine at Peronne, where after his deal 
a monastery for Irishmen was established, to be pillage( 
after the lapse of centuries by the marauding Northmei 
as the centers founded by and named after St. Gobaii 
St. Gibrian, and many another Irish saint were overrui 
and plundered during the Calvinist wars of the sixteenth 
century. The monks who preceded Fursa labored along 
the Authie, Somme, Seine, Oise, Marne, Aisne, and 
Meuse — names all familiar to students of the great war; 
those who accompanied him cooperated in carrying the 
good work into Belgium and beyond it. Eata, Mael- 
ceadar, Amand, Bertuin and others preached the gospel 
in the Low Countries. Livinus labored at Ghent, through- 
out Flanders and Brabant indeed. Rumold became first 
bishop and apostle of historic Mechlin. Ultan governed 
monasteries at Mont St. Quentin and between the Meuse 
and Sambre in the region of Maestriche. Wiro founded 

16 



Lineaments in the Conspectus 

St. Peter's monastery, also in the territory of Liege. 
Fingen established the monastery of St. Vannes at Ver- 
dun ; Abbot Maolcalain was the first bishop of St. Michael 
in Thierache. Others found their way much farther 
afield, notable among them Fridolin the Traveller, Kil- 
lian, patron of Wurzburg, and Marianus Scotus, who 
labored at Paderborn, Fulda, Metz and elsewhere. In the 
tenth century learning flourished in the region of the 
Meuse and Moselle, at Toul and Verdun, which were oc- 
cupied by colonies of monks from Greece and Ireland. 

2. From Iceland to the Pyramids 

Colman, patron of Lower Austria, had the experience 
of being seized as a Moravian spy during the war be- 
tween the Moravians and the Austrians early in the elev- 
enth century. Towards its close John, another Irish 
missionary, converted multitudes in Sclavonia, between 
the Elbe and the Vistula, and finally was beheaded at 
Rethre. St. Tressan and his companions announced the 
Gospel at Rheims and along the district of Chalons-sur- 
Marne. A host of others penetrating to the North made 
the mountains and forests of Germany and Scandinavia 
resound with the glad tidings of redemption. From Egypt 
in the East to Iceland in the North, hardly an acre can be 
found which has not been consecrated by the ceaseless 
.strivings, the sweat and the blood of the men of Ireland. 
Little wonder that it seemed as tho in Green's words, 
"Celtic, and not Latin, Christianity was to mold the 
destinies of the Churches of the West." 

Dicuil, early in the ninth century, tells of an Irishman, 
Fidelis, who measured the Pyramids and "went thence 
by the canal to the Red Sea." Far earlier another, Pel- 
legrinus, penetrated to the Holy Land, fasted forty days 

J 7 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

in the desert, returned through Egypt, whence he sailed 
for Italy, landing at Ancona, to spend the rest of his life 
near the mountain called after him. In 634 a deputation 
of scholarly Irishmen, sent by the Irish government, 
lodged in a hospice in Rome with a Greek and a Hebrew, 
an Egyptian and a Scythian, w T ho told them the whole 
world celebrated the Roman and not the Irish Easter. 
In Constantinople in the ninth century Irish monks told 
the Greeks that every Irish monastery possest a Chrysostom. 
Cathaldus of Lismore, returning from the Holy Land, 
was shipwrecked at Taranto, of which, in recognition of 
his labors, he became bishop, patron and second apostle. 
Findan of Rheinau escaped from the Norse pirates of the 
Orkneys before settling in Switzerland. Pilgrims settled 
in the Faroe Islands and in Iceland, where, in the year 
860, the Norwegians found Irish books, bells and croziers, 
left there by men who profest the Christian religion. In 
659 the Irish Angus or Augustin wrote, apparently in 
Carthage, to the bishops of which he dedicated his work, 
perhaps the most original theological treatise of the early 
Middle Ages. 

Note the practical industry of these Irish missionaries 
and their disciples. "To their untiring industry is it due 
that half of France and of ungrateful Europe has been 
restored to cultivation," is the testimony of Montalembert 
in respect to the monks in general, but it applies to the 
Irish monks and their disciples in particular. Ursicinus, 
expelled with Columbanus from Luxeuil, attached to his 
own monastery at St. Ursanne subsequently a hospital 
for the sick poor, with baggage cattle to help travelers 
over the Alps. Wandresgisel, disciple of Columbanus 
and founder of the monastery of Fontenelles, is reputed 
to have planted the first vineyard in Normandy. St. 

18 



Lineaments in the Conspectus 



Eata, patron saint of cowherds, is represented in art as 
surrounded by calves and oxen. St. Fiachra or Fiacre is 
the patron of the cab-drivers of Paris, to support the 
poor of which he is said to have turned the wilderness 
of Meaux into a garden. St. Eloi, disciple alike of 
Columbanus and Fursa, is patron of farriers and silver- 
smiths, as Dunstan, educated by Irish instructors and 
craftsmen, is the patron saint of goldsmiths. Frigidian, hon- 
ored in Italy as San FreHiano, engineered canals in the 
plains of Lucca. Rudpert, another Irishman whose fig- 
ure is portraye'd on the coins of Carinthia, started the salt 
mining that made Salzburg famous, and gave it its name. 
Magnoald, apostle of Suabia, is reputed to Have discov- 
ered the mountain iron of Suilinic and taught the people 
how to work it. 

Andrew of Fiesole, the brother of Donagh or Donatus 
of Fiesole, who had the reputation of working after the 
manner of a reasoning bee, helped with his own hands 
to build there a church of stone and mortar. As a result 
of pilgrimages to the shrine of Andrew's sister, Brigid, 
the surrounding wastes were reclaimed, the forests cleared, 
and the fields planted. Nor was Brigid herein peculiar. 
Gregory the Great: Has reference to Maura and Britta, 
two virgins, obviously Irish, who were buried at Tours, 
where they had come as pilgrims to the shrine of St. 
Martin. Remi, father of pilgrims, provided suitable re- 
treats on the banks of the Marne for the three sisters of 
Gibrian, on pilgrimage too from Ireland, "for the love of 
Christ." 

"They did not," says the biographer of Remi, "live only 
on the charity of those to whom pious Remi had com- 
menced them, but also on their own industry and the 
labor of their Hands, in accordance with the custom of 

19 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

the religious bodies in Ireland. This life, united to won- 
derful holiness and constant prayer, won for them a great 
love among the natives of the country." Dymphna, as 
the reward of her industry, became the patron saint not 
only of the insane but also of Brabant. St. Begha or 
Bee, who first crossed from Ireland to St. Bee's Head, 
called after her, assisted with her own hands in erecting 
at Hartlepool the mother convent of England, as her 
countryman and spiritual director, Aidan, erected at 
Lindisfarne the mother church of Northumbria. At 
Lindisf arne the English were taught writing and the let- 
ters used among them till the Norman conquest. From 
Bangor and from among the Irish in Wales Alfred secured 
professors when he sought to set up schools in England. 

3. Incomparably Skilled in Human Learning 

To the time of the Conqueror England existed simply 
as an intellectual dependency of Ireland. It was Irish- 
men like Aidan, Finan, Colman, Maeldubh, and Fursa 
who introduced the machinery of Christian civilization 
into the land which Roman missionaries had trod with 
fear and trembling. When the Danes destroyed the evi- 
dences of progress in England it was Irishmen again, 
themselves harassed by these same freebooters, who re- 
paired the ravages. Almost every scholar of note in the 
Anglo-Saxon era was trained either in Ireland or by 
Irishmen in England. There was hardly a school in 
England, outside that at Canterbury — though here Irish- 
men were prominent also in Theodore's time — that was 
not established and conducted by Irishmen or by men 
who were Irish-taught. What is now called Scotland 
they simply made their own. The inauguration there by 
Columcille of Aidan is the earliest recorded instance of a 

20 



Lineaments in the Conspectus 



royal coronation in Great Britain, where the Irish cere- 
monies came into universal use. "The Irish," says Col- 
lins, "colonized Scotland, gave it a name, a literature and 
a language, gave it a hundred kings, and gave it Chris- 
tianity." 

Aidan familiarized the English of the north with the 
solemn melody of the Roman chant, and music and as- 
tronomy were among the subjects taught by the Irish 
monks at Glastonbury. Foillan and Ultan, on crossing 
from Bamborough to Flanders, were asked by Gertrude 
of Nivelles to instruct her nuns in psalmody, while the 
music school of St. Gall, under Moengal, was "the won- 
der and the delight of Europe." St. Gall itself became 
known as "the intellectual center of the German world," 
as Bobbio, founded by Columbanus, was long "the light 
of northern Italy." Baoithin, successor of Columcille 
at Iona, "had no equal this side of the Alps in his knowl- 
edge of sacred scripture and the profundity of his sci- 
ence." Adamnan, abbot also of Iona, and "high scholar 
of the western world," has left us in his exquisite life of 
Columcille "one of the most important pieces of hagiology 
in existence" — moreover "the most complete piece of 
biography that all Europe can boast of, not only at so early 
a period, but even through the whole Middle Ages," in 
the opinion of Pinkerton. 1 

Fursa's marvelous visions, says Ozanam, inspired 
Dante. Johannes Scotus Eriugena ranked with Dante, 
Chrysostom and Albertus Magnus; no more puissant or 
original thinker appeared in the long tract between Au- 
gustine and Aquinas. Clemens and "Albinus" were "in- 
comparably skilled in human learning and in the 
Scriptures." Tutilo or Tuthail of St. Gall was at once 



i Enquiry, Pref. vol. 1, p. xlviia (Edinib., 1814). 

21 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

musician, orator, poet, painter, sculptor, builder, gold- 
smith; Dungal, theologian, controversialist, poet, as- 
tronomer; Virgilius of Salzburg, prince of astronomers, 
"most learned among the learned." Nor was Dicuil the 
only great Irish geographer. Duncan or Dunchad, an 
Irish bishop, teaching in the monastery of Remi at 
Rheims, where he died about the close of the tenth cen- 
tury, wrote for the use of his students "Explanatory Obser- 
vations on the First Book of Pomponius Mela regarding 
the situation of the earth," as well as a "Commentary on the 
Nine Books of Martianus Capella on the Liberal Arts." 1 
For these reasons "it was that Fingen and Duncan and 
other Irishmen hlad been so (peculiarly patronized at 
Rheims, Metz, Verdun, and along the territories of France 
and Germany. Learning had been revived by Irish- 
men in the imperial city of Cologne; they taught the 
classics and the sciences in the extensive diocese of Toul ; 
they established schools along the Rhine, in the Nether- 
lands, Switzerland, and the northern districts of Italy; 
in short, the Irish ecclesiastics of the tenth and preceding 
centuries were the persons by whose means the reign of 
literature had been established in many of the most dis- 
tinguished cities and provinces of Europe." 2 Every 
province in Germany proclaims the Irish as its benefac- 
tors, says a German author. "The Saxons and the tribes 
of northern Germany are indebted to them to an extent 
which may be judged from the fact that the first ten 
bishops who occupied the see of Verden belonged to that 
(Irish) race." 

Noteworthy was the modesty of these Irish pioneers. 
Columbanus, friend of Agilulf, king of the Lombards, 

iThe MS. (Lat. 4854) Is in the BibliothSque Nationals, Paris. Se» Hist. 
Lit de la France, I, 549-50. 

3 Brenan, EccL Hist, of Ireland, p. 199. 

22 



Lineaments in the Conspectus 

and of Chlothair, king of Neustria, declined late in life 
the recall to his well loved Luxeuil. Gallus similarly 
declined the preferred government of Luxeuil and the 
bishopric of Constance. Virgilius, tho appointed bishop 
of Salzburg by Pope Stephen II and King Pepin, de- 
ferred his consecration for two years. Donatus hesitated 
to accept the see of Fiesole. Dungal, high in the esteem 
of Charlemagne, specially desired that he might occupy 
no higher station in the church than simple deacon. Ultan 
is represented with a crown at his feet to signify his 
contempt for the things of the earth. 

Not less striking were the mortifications they involun- 
tarily endured. Columcille, a scion of the royal Hy Nial, 
lived on bread and water and vegetables, as often as not 
on common nettles; he slept on the bare sand with a 
stone for pillow, his pallet betimes the naked rock. 
Adamnan lived at Coludi on two meals a week and fre- 
quently passed the whole night in vigil. Columbanus, 
unwitting rival of St. Benedict, subsisted for three weeks 
on grass and bilberries and the bark of trees. His fol- 
lowers and successors, tho in many instances of princely 
birth and upbringing, were scarcely less given to frugal 
fare. Not St. Gall and Lure alone had princes for ab- 
bots: Waldebert, Count of Meaux and Ponthieu, ruled 
Luxeuil with unparalleled success for forty years. De- 
spite their self-denial, the complaint was made at an 
early stage that the monks of Luxeuil by their clearances 
and cultivation were destroying the chase in the surround- 
ing woods. 1 

*As the purpose here is to give a preliminary bird's-eye view numerous 
footnotes have been avoided. These wh»re useful will come later. 



23 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

4. The Carolingian Renaissance 

The number of scholars which Ireland gave to th( 
empire of Charlemagne amazed Eric of Auxerre. 1 Froi 
the beginning of the Carolingian renaissance they wen 
the leaders in every intellectual activity. "Altho it was 
Italy that inspired Charles with the idea of founding 
schools throughout the empire, it was Ireland that sent 
him the masters who were to impart the new learning. 
. . . . Alcuin, altho an Englishman, is justly considered 
a representative of Irish learning; with him is associated 
Clement of Ireland, who assisted in the work of founding 
the Palace school. Unfortunately history has not pre- 
served the names of Clement's fellow countrymen who, 
during the reign of Charles and throughout the ninth 
century, were found in every cathedral and monastery of 
the empire as well as at the court of the Frankish kings, 
and were so identified with the new intellecfual move- 
ment that the teaching of the newly founded schools was 
characterized as Irish learning." 2 

There is nothing in the whole history of literature more 
extraordinary than Irish knowledge of Greek during this 
period when all knowledge of it had apparently died out 
among others in western Europe. The fact that the em-' 
perors in the West had to turn to Irishmen for the eluci- 
dation of manuscripts that no Greek knew Latin enough 
and no Latin knew Greek enough to interpret is a mys- 
tery as astonishing and difficult to solve in our day as it 
appeared to Anastasius, 3 the Roman librarian, in his day. 
From Pelagius and Columbanus through Johannes Sco- 
tus Eriugena to Michael the Irishman (Scotus) we are 
confronted by the evidences of this baffling Hellenic pre- 

iVita S, Germani, praef. 

2 Turner, History of Philosophy, pp. 241-2. 

s Migne, Patrologia Latina, cxxii, 93. 

24 



Lineaments in the Conspectus 



eminence, an incommunicable illumination invisible as 
to its source and tributaries. In the fifth century Pela- 
gius won an easy triumph over Orosius, the representative 
of St. Augustine, by his knowledge of Greek. Thomas 
Aquinas in the thirteenth century knew no Greek. Yet 
Eriugena in the ninth century not only translated from 
Greek into Latin and from Latin into Greek but wrote 
Greek poetry, and Michael Scotus, a contemporary of 
Aquinas, was among the first to acquaint Europe with 
the larger philosophy of Aristotle by translating his 
works from the Arabic. When in the same age Fred- 
erick II, who, like Charlemagne, loved to surround him- 
self with Irishmen, decided on setting up the University 
of Naples, he invited Peter the Irishman to be its first 
rector, as another Irishman a little later became chan- 
cellor at Oxford. Among the students who listened to 
Peter was the Angelic Doctor himself. 

I have fixed the telescope so as to bring into relief 
some of the lineaments in the conspectus. A sum- 
ming-up and condensation is provided by an eager stu- 
dent of Irish medieval work abroad : 

"By the armies of monastic missionaries and next by 
learned teachers first attracting pupils to Irish schools 
from all Christian Europe north of the Alps and the 
Pyrenees, and next by sending forth men to become the 
founders of schools or monasteries or churches abroad — 
the churches of St. Patrick and St. Columba stand out 
from the sixth century forward as the most energetic 
centers of religious life and knowledge in Europe; the 
main restorers of Christianity in paganized England and 
Roman Germany; the reformers and main founders of 
monastic life in northern France ; the opponents of Arian- 
ism even in Italy itself; originators in the West of the 

25 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

well-meant, however mistaken, system of the Penitentials; 
the leading preservers in the eighth and ninth centuries 
of theological and classic culture, Greek as well as Latin ; 
the scribes, both at home and abroad, of many a Bible 
text; the teachers of psalmody; the schoolmasters of the 
great monastic schools; the parents, in great part, as 
well as the forerunners of Anglo-Saxon learning and mis- 
sionary zeal ; the senders-forth of not the least bright stars 
among the galaxy of talent gathered by Charlemagne from 
all quarters to instruct his degenerate Franks — down to 
the very eleventh and twelfth centuries." 1 

We can measure the strength and richness of the old 
Irish civilization and the valor and energy of its deposi- 
taries by comparing the work performed by it and them 
with the contemporary work of other peoples similarly 
situated. The Church of Britain and Wales, for example, 
which is usually represented as a sister Celtic Church, 
the co-partner of the Church of Ireland in culture and 
zeal, did not produce a single missionary or schoolman 
who gained eminence abroad, and has not bequeathed to 
us even a single copy of the Scriptures. The dictum 
"The Roman sowed; the Irishman (Scotus) watered; 
the Briton did nothing" has a wider application than to 
the conversion of the English. 

iHaddan, (Scots on the Continent), Remains 258-94 (Oxford, 1876). 



26 



CHAPTER III 

BRIDGING THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW 

i. Ark of Safety for the Old Wisdom. 2. Ireland's Educational Pro- 
ficiency. 3. Centers of Intellectual Activity. 4. Text-books and 
Learned Degrees. 

i. Ark of Safety for the Old Wisdom 

OUR modern civilization has so clearly the im- 
prints of Greece and Rome upon it that the stu- 
dent usually fails to realize the immense vicissi- 
tudes through which it has passed in its duration to our 
day. The fabric of the old world of antiquity to which 
Caesar more than any other had given name and form 
was never more securely established than during the two 
centuries which followed his death. A long period of 
peace prevailed over the vast empire, and a knowledge of 
the liberal arts spread into the remotest provinces. From 
Rome as a center Christianity as well as letters went forth, 
the former spreading in the face of persecution till Con- 
stantine in 312 A. D. put the seal of legality upon it. 
But already the structure of Roman civilization, built up 
on foundations laid down by Assyrian, Persian, Greek 
and Celtic conquests, was shaking under the blows dealt 
upon it from the north. Till the termination of the reign 
of the Antonines, for a century and a half, the period of 
peace and prosperity continued. Then came a century 
that was full of menace and trouble but in which no 
vital injury was inflicted on the body politic. And then 
at last in the middle of the fourth century Rome began 
to crumble. Barbarians and pestilence were delivering 

27 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

the annihilating blows. The Franks -overran Gaul and 
descended into Spain, and the Goths poured into the 
east and into Asia Minor. Over the ruin which the 
Franks left behind them in Gaul and Spain the Vandals 
followed, nullifying the efforts at revival. In Asia the 
Huns poured over Cappadocia, Cilicia and Palestine, 
while Saracens passed through Egypt over north Africa 
into Spain. Britain was overrun by northern savages 
like the Saxons, Angles and Jutes, and Austria by Asiatic 
nomads like the Huns and Magyars. Then Goth fol- 
lowed Goth in Europe and German and Frank completed 
the work of destruction, in which earthquake, flood, fire 
and plague cooperated. In 407 A. D. a multitude of 
Franks and Vandals burst over Gaul. Roman rule prac- 
tically ceased and the three kingdoms of the Visigoths, 
Burgundians and Franks began to form. In 476 Odoacer 
deposed the last Roman emperor in Italy and in 486 Clo- 
vis the Frank ended the last vestige of Roman rule in 
Gaul. Then as if some inscrutable design sought, by a 
huge phenomenon, to leave no doubt that the world of 
the Caesars had gone forever, there followed the plague of 
542. It raged for four months in Constantinople and 
for four years in the Roman Empire. "When the plague 
has ceased, we feel that we are moving in a completely 
other world than that of 540." 1 

At the fall of the Roman Empire Ireland did not share 
in the ruin of its civilization. That ruin was almost as 
complete as if the ocean had burst its banks and washed 
over the plains of Europe. Now Ireland had shared in 
the commerce, the learning and the traditions of Rome 
while Rome was still in its strength. The Roman Empire 
fell swallowed up by tide after tide of heathen savages, 

iRury's Later Roman Empire, I, 400. 

28 



Bridging the Old World and the New 

eager for destruction and plunder. Outside the empire 
Russia and Germany, like the Scandinavian lands, were 
still barbarian and pagan. Thus all Europe almost be- 
came submerged under a deluge of savage heathendom. 
Ireland was the one exception, the ark of safety for the 
old beauty and wisdom of classical days. It was the 
bridge over what were truly the dark ages of Europe and 
as soon as the flood of heathen invasion ebbed, light and 
hope crossed the bridge and were first carried by Irish 
instructors to all the new-forming nations of Europe, the 
great heathen tribes destined to become the nations of 
the modern world. 

While Europe, including Britain, was thus in tumult, 
peace and prosperity were brooding over favored Hi- 
bernia. Hundreds of years yet separated her from the 
Danish raids, and the English were scarcely yet known 
to civilization. The Romans had never succeeded in 
crossing, except for commerce, the waves that separated 
her from Britain. The Milesian Gaels, who had given 
organization to the country, had been so long settled in 
Ireland that the memory of that settlement had assumed 
a mythological character. 1 The assumption is that in the 
midst of the vast Celtic movements that are discernible 
over all Europe about 600 B. C. there was also a Celtic 
invasion of Ireland. One invasion probably followed 
another and an Irish historical tract, written about 721 
A. D., and copied from older sources, gives the definite 
Gaelic monarchy as beginning contemporaneously with 
Alexander the Great in the fourth century B. C. 2 From 
that time onward one form of government, a limited elec- 

1 "The Irish are one of the most ancient nations that I know of at this 
end of the world" ; and come of "as mighty a race as the world ever brought 
forth" (Edmund Spenser, "View of the State of Ireland," 1596, pp. 26 and 32). 

2 "Alexander had reigned five years when the sons of Mil came to Ireland, 
and the battle of Tailtu was fought in which fell the T. D. D. (Tuatha Da 
Danaan) with their queens." See MacNeill, Proo. Royal Ir. Acad., 1909-10, 
p. 132. 

29 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

tive monarchy, and one dynasty, the Milesian, ruled over 
Ireland, through a many-branched patriarchal system, 
bound together by one language, one national literature, 
and one code of laws. 

The century that saw the final disruption of imperial 
Rome saw Ireland growing greater and more splendid. 
At that period the martial might of the Irish was at its 
height; their fleets held the northern seas and their forces 
triumphed in the lands which are now called Scotland, 
England, Wales and France. Their foreign trade 
brought them captives from the Roman provinces, rep- 
resentative of a different culture, just as in former times 
the Greeks had been drawn to Rome. 

Greek and Roman learning was freely imported from 
Marseilles, Narbonne and Bordeaux, where Ausonius 
and his uncle and their circle kept alive the ancient tra- 
ditions, as well as from northern Gaul and Roman Britain. 
There were Christians in Ireland before the advent of 
St. Patrick, and the ease with which the country turned 
from paganism to Christianity is reasonably explained by 
its long previous preparation in cosmopolitan culture. A 
certain Ethicus in the third or fourth century tells us 
how he visited Ireland and what he thought of its books. 
Ussher says that in 360 A. D. a Christian priest was sent 
from Rome to teach the Christian faith in Ireland. The 
Glossary of Cormac, prince and bishop of Cashel, fur- 
nishes strong testimony to the cultivation of letters an< 
learning before the arrival of St. Patrick. Cormac, who 
was a younger contemporary of Johannes Scotus Eriugena 
and wrote in the ninth century, quotes not only Christian 
writers but also many pagan Irish authors — poets, his 
torians, grammarians and others — who must all have live< 
previous to or contemporaneously with St. Patrick. 

30 



Bridging the Old World and the New 



In citing Ireland as the native land of the heresiarch 
Pelagius, St. Jerome gave expression to the foreign im- 
pression in respect to Ireland's educational proficiency at 
the end of the fourth century. St. Patrick in his Con- 
fession, composed in the middle of the fifth century, apolo- 
gizes for the inferiority of his own to Irish culture, and 
his description of himself as a man of single speech from 
his birth is indicative of antagonists knowing more tongues 
than one. The works of the first Sedulius before 450 
A. D., presuming that he was an Irishman, the poems of 
Sechnall, and the extant writings of Columbanus, Colum- 
cille and their contemporaries, add to the testimony be- 
fore the end of the sixth century. 

A year before the arrival of St. Patrick, Pope Celes- 
tine is recorded as sending Palladius to the "Scots of Ire- 
land believing in Christ." But it would appear that up 
to the time in which St. Patrick began his great work the 
Christians of Ireland were in a great minority and prac- 
tised their religion in secrecy. 

2. Ireland's Educational Proficiency 

Long before the advent of Christianity the numerous 
schools of the Druids and the bards carried on the tradi- 
tion of pagan culture and taught history, poetry, and law, 
and there were also academies of a higher grade. There 
is in fact in the "Ogygia" an early instance of a species of 
university established at Tara in the third century by 
Cormac, the high-king, son of Airt: "Cormac exceeded 
all his predecessors in magnificence, munificence, wisdom, 
and learning, as also in military achievements. His 
palace was most superbly adorned and richly furnished, 
and his numerous family proclaim his majesty and mu- 
nificence; the books he published and the schools he 

31 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

endowed at Tara bear unquestionable testimony to his 
learning; there were three schools instituted: In the first 
the most eminent professors of the art of war were en- 
gaged, in the second history was taught, and in the third 
jurisprudence was profest." 1 There is a long poem in 
the book of Ua Davegan on these colleges, the grandeur of 
Tara in the reign of Cormac, his encomiums and exploits. 2 

But the fame of Ireland as the "Island of Saints and 
Scholars" is based mainly on the chain of remarkable 
foundations that began to garland the land following the 
introduction of Christianity. The more important of 
these seats of learning, which in course of time made their 
influence felt over the whole civilized world, were in the 
true sense of the word universities. They made the 
whole circle of knowledge the subject of their inquiry 
and teaching; they drew their teachers and students from 
every part of Europe; and they were the original models 
on which in great measure modern universities have been 
formed. Measured even by the characteristic distinc- 
tions arbitrarily enumerated by Bulaeus — ratione dis- 
ciplinae, ratione loci, ratione fundatorum, ratione privi- 
legiorum, ratione regimenis — they fulfilled the idea of 
universities. 

Among them Armagh and Clonmacnois in particular 
possest a national, not to speak of an international, 
character. Leaving aside minor seats of learning with 
which Ireland was at that time honeycombed, there wen 
in number thirty-six of these larger monastic establish- 
ments. Armagh, as the seat of the primal see of St. Pat- 
rick, was the greatest of them all, and it became and lonj 

iHely's Transl. Senchus na Relic (History of the Cemeteries) in Leabb 
na h-Uidhre (Book of the Dun Cow), a MS. of the eleventh century founded o 
others much older. 

2 The poem begins: "Teamhair na riogh rath Cormaic" — (Tara of the kin 
is Cormac' s seat" — ). 

32 



Bridging the Old World and the New 

remained the most renowned seat of learning in the world. 
Founded in the fifth century it retained its supremacy in 
the twelfth. Thus the synod of Clane in 1162 ordered 
that from that time forth only former students of Armagh 
were to obtain the position of "fer leiginn," or chief pro- 
fessor, in a school attached to any church in Ireland. This 
decree was really equivalent to a recognition of the school 
of Armagh as a national university for all Ireland. Seven 
years later the king of Ireland, Ruaidhri, established 
and endowed in Armagh a new professorship for the 
benefit of students from Ireland and Scotland. 

After Armagh there followed Clonard in present 
Meath, ancient Bregia and Tenia, founded early in the 
sixth century by Finan or Finnian ; Clonmacnois, on the 
banks of the Shannon in the present King's County, 
founded in the same century by Ciaran, called the "Car- 
penter's Son"; Bangor in Uladh, or Ulidia, amid the 
coastal ards of Ulster, "that glorious institution" as St. 
Bernard of Clairvaux calls it, founded by Comgall 1 in 
558; Clonfert, founded by St. Brendan the Navigator; 
Lismore in Desies (now County Waterford), founded by 
Carthach, surnamed Mochuda, about the year 633 ; and 
Glendalough, in present Wicklow, part of the ancient 
territory of Hy-Kinsellagh. 

Clonard (Cluain Erard, Erard's meadow), on the 
banks of the River Boyne, began as the cell of Finnian, 2 

lColumbanus, founder of Luxeuil, Annegray, Fontaines and Bobbio, who 
was educated at Bangor, preserves in his second Instruction a fragment of the 
writings of Comgall (See Ulster Journal of Archaeology, I, p. 174, Old Series, 
Beeves on Antiphonary of Bangor; Migne, LXXX, 229 seq.). Notker Balbulus, 
■who flourished at the Irish foundation of St. Gall in 890, identifies the name 
of Faustus, which Columbanus gives to his old master, with the Irish name 
Comgall. 

2 "Naimh (St.) Finnian of Clonard, the pious one. 
And scholar, in whose school three thousand saints 
Had studied wisdom, ere they wandered forth 

To build their cells and churches throughout vast Erin." (Tain. Prol., 
Finding of the Tain, transl. by Hutton, p. 6.) 

33 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

and later grew into a cluster of stone buildings, with 
some structures built of enduring woods. The fame of its 
learning brought to it multitudes of scholars, including 
laymen, clerics, abbots and bishops. From it went forth 
the group of remarkable men known as the "Twelve 
Apostles of Erin." In the office of St. Finnian, the 
founder, its students are said to have numbered three 
thousand. For centuries the school was renowned for 
scriptural learning. From it, says Ussher, "scholars came 
out in as great numbers as Greeks from the side of the 
horse of Troy." 

Clonfert rivaled Clonard in fame and in the number of 
its students. It was an extremely wealthy foundation, 
endowed with large estates of fertile land, so that its later 
bishops on appointment paid into the papal treasury large 
sums of gold. We have an almost complete list of its 
bishops and abbots, one of whom was Cummian, whose 
celebrated letter on the Paschal controversy, addrest to 
Iona early in the seventh century, remarkable for its eru- 
dition, urbanity, and modesty, sheds a luminous ray on 
the liberal culture dispensed in these great seats of learn- 
ing. The city of Brendan, once peopled by multitudes 
of eager students, noted as the training ground of the 
greatest of preceptors, is to-day a vast solitude. 

The site of Clonmacnois is almost in the center of Ire- 
land. This famous institution possest rich lands and 
Prince Diarmuid, one of the sons of Cerbaill, the high- 
king, whom he succeeded as Diarmuid II, made it the 
particular object of his munificence, so that it became en- 
dowed as a seminary for the whole nation. Both Clon- 
macnois and Clonfert cultivated Irish learning with 
especial distinction, so that to the labor of their schools 
we are indebted for the leading authentic records of 

34 



Bridging the Old World and the New 

ancient Ireland, and for the preservation of important 
compositions of the bards and recensions of the old Irish 
laws, known as the Brehon codes. A forest of inscribed 
stones still stands amid the ruins of Clonmacnois — the 
ruined cathedral with seven oratories, round tower and 
decorated high crosses — some of the inscriptions in Latin, 
some even in Hebrew, but over two hundred of them in 
the medieval Irish tongue which the cultivation of Latin 
did not impede or supersede. 1 The fame of Bangor, 
which appears to have been the mother of Bangor in 
Wales, was known to St. Bernard in Gaul, who has de- 
scribed it as "the training ground of monks in many a 
thousand, the head of many a monastery, a truly holy 
place, fertile in saints, yielding the richest harvests for 
God." 2 Monasterboice, Moville, Glendalough, the Co- 
lumbiad foundations, and the schools of Thomond and 
Desmond, nearly all founded in the sixth century, were 
educational institutions second only in celebrity. Arbor- 
eta of civilization, the medieval counterparts of Zeno's 
garden and Plato's Academe, the beneficiaries of modern 
learning might well take off their shoes in treading these 
now silent glades, for there are few more sacred spots 
over which the arts and refinements have bloomed. 3 

i "At eve they came 

To Ciaran's green, to holy Clonmacnois, 
To Clonmacnois upon a flowery slope 
Amid a rushry by the pure, bright Shannon, 
"Where all was blest and still. 
And in that place 

In after time a sacred school and city 
Should rise — Naimh Ciaran's city — and should grow 
Like a tall tree, where rule and truth and wisdom 
Should spread through half the land." 

(Tain [Epil. Writing of the Tain], transl. Hutton, p. 448.) 

2 Vita Malach. 

3 The principal Irish schools were: Armagh, Kildare, Noendrum, Louth, 
Emly, St. Ibar, Cluainfois, St. Asicus, all founded in the fifth century; St. 
Enda of Aran, Clonard, Clonfert, Moville, Clonmacnois, Derry, Durrow, Kells, 
Iona, Bangor, Clonenagh, Glendalough, Tuam, founded in the sixth century; 
and Lismore, Cork, Ross, Inisfallen, Mungret, Iniscaltra, Birr, Roscrea, In- 
isboffin, Mayo of the Saxons, founded in the seventh century. These leave 
out of account the more numerous lay and professional schools, some of 
which were very celebrated, as that of Tuaim Drecain, where general liter- 
ature, law and the arts were taught. (Vid. Healy. Ireland's Ancient Schools 
and Scholars; O' Curry, Lectures, II.) 

35 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

3. Centers of Intellectual Activity 

The Irish monasteries were not places wholly attuned to 
mystic contemplation, but great centers of knowledge and 
intellectual activity. As the sixth century progressed 
they assumed more and more the character of great studia 
generali, reaching forth over the whole contemporary 
field of learning. 1 

The monastic buildings were mostly grouped round an 
oratorio or basilica, as Colgan calls it — with a rampart — 
as with caiseal, rath or lis — circularly or ovally surround- 
ing the whole, tho sometimes rectangular also. This was 
after the fashion of the houses of the princely and well- 
to-do in Ireland and partook of the character of a dun. 
The plan, which was afterward followed in the Irish 
foundations which later garlanded Europe, included 
churches, storehouses, kilns, mills, sacristies or side houses, 
the abbot's house, the great house or refectory, the cuisine 
or kitchen, the hospice or guest house, the scriptorium 
and library, and a vast number of cells distributed in 
streets or squares. In course of time round towers rose 
over the assemblage of buildings with sculptured high 
crosses near by. 

The monastic "family" included priests, deacons, minor 
clerks, and laymen, who all yielded obedience to the abbot, 
as an army to the commander-in-chief. It was a maxim 
that they had to support and clothe themselves, and their 
work included agriculture, dairying, the breeding of sheep 
and cattle, architecture, writing and ornamenting books, 
and cabinet-making. In all this labor they attained in- 
comparable skill, and as smiths and braziers in various 
kinds of metals they outdistanced all rivalry in Europe. 

1 "One of the most striking features of the organization of the early- 
monastic church in Ireland and Scotland was its provision for the cultiva- 
tion of learning and for the training of its members in sacred and profane 
literature." (Skene, Celtic Scotland, II, p. 419.) 

36 



Bridging the Old World and the New 

All the studies of the time were taught in the larger 
Irish schools mainly through the medium of the Gaelic 
language, not merely theology, but philosophy, mathe- 
matics, rhetoric, poetry, hagiography, natural science as 
then understood, grammar, chronology, astronomy, agri- 
culture, Greek, Latin and even Hebrew. The references 
to "learned scribes," "professors of divinity," "wise doc- 
tors," "vessels full of wisdom," "moderators," "rectors," 
and "regents" in which the annals teem, bear witness to 
a full, rounded, unflagging intellectual life. 

While Irish was the usual medium of instruction, Latin 
was also largely employed, and often a mixture of the two, 
as is immediately observable from a study of the Irish an- 
nals and the scholia, where the languages intermingle in 
a manner that show they were equally living tongues to 
the writers. The magister scholae or scholasticus held 
the text-book before him and expounded the author, and 
this was the method employed whether the subject was 
grammar, dialectics, Irish poetry or any other subject. 
Apart from the distinctively Irish studies and divinity the 
scope of learning in the Irish schools both at home and 
abroad was mainly comprised within the seven liberal 
arts and philosophy, to which something of medicine and 
law was added, although these professional studies had 
special schools of their own, as will be shown. The 
Trivium — grammar, dialectic and rhetoric — and the 
Quadrivium — geometry, arithmetic, music, astronomy — 
were, in their form at least, a legacy from old Roman 
education. They appear in the Disciplinarum libri 
novem of Varro in the first century B. C. and they were 
introduced into the educational system of the Middle 
Ages mainly through Augustine and Martianus Capella, 
both of whom were great favorites in the Irish schools. 

37 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

It is clear that the scope of these arts could be made 
very much wider than the names suggest. There was 
nothing that was mechanical or traditional in the Irish 
use of them and from the beginning Irishmen showed 
little disposition to be content with what was handed 
down, but sought to explore new fields of their own. 
Under grammar became included the study of Irish, Latin 
and Greek literature. They carried the study of dialec- 
tic, which in their hands comprised the core of modern 
logic, to so high a pitch that in the Carolingian era they 
were the most bewilderingly skilled controversialists in 
Europe, and dialectic came to be looked upon and feared 
as a distinctively Irish branch of intellectual legerdemain. 
Rhetoric covered the study of law also, and a mere glance 
over the great volumes containing the old Irish laws, 
called the Brehon Laws, the most copious and authentic 
mass of material bearing on the history of Ireland, will 
give an idea of the labor such study entailed. Geometry 
included geography, natural history and the medicinal 
properties of plants. Though the Irish adopted the Gre- 
gorian chant, they were themselves the most advanced 
people in Europe in the field of music and their pursuit 
of that study was as a result almost exclusively Irish. 

4. Text-books and Learned Degrees 

We are not familiar with all the text-books in the hands 
of the Irish masters, for they were in possession of both 
Latin and Greek works that had become almost unknown 
on the Continent. We are pretty well informed, however 
in regard to the text-books most in use in the Irish schools 
both in Ireland and abroad. They surpassed all the 
scholars of the time in their familiarity with such works 
of Aristotle as were available, and the trenchant employ- 

38 



Bridging the Old World and the New 

ment they made of his De Interpretatione with Porphy- 
ry's Eisagoge made philosophy almost wholly occupied 
with logical problems in the earliest scholastic period. Of 
Plato's dialogs the Irish scholars appear to have known 
the Timaeus in the original, tho on the Continent it was 
known only in the translation of Chalcidius, made in the 
fifth century. The commentaries of Chalcidius, the works 
of Augustine, the De Dogmate Platonis of Apuleius, and 
the commentary of Macrobius on Cicero's Dream of 
Scipio, gave them an acquaintance with the general phi- 
losophy of Plato. Translations and compilations of 
Marius Victorinus, Claudianus Mamertus and Donatus 
were read and expounded in the Irish schools, and later 
the works of the Neo-Platonists filtered through them. 
One of their current text-books in philosophy was the De 
Consolatione of Boethius and in the tenth century they 
became familiar also with his translation of the Cate- 
goriae of Aristotle. They used some of the rhetorical 
and dialectical treatises of Cicero, such as his Topica and 
De Offiiciis — indeed we have Irish scholars to thank for 
the preservation of parts of his Pro Fonteio and In 
Pisonem. They knew also the De Beneficiis of Seneca and 
the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius. Priscian and 
Donatus were their chief authorities on grammar, and 
other greatly used text-books in the Irish schools were the 
commentaries and original works of Martianus Capella, 
Charisius, Cassiodorus, Boethius and Isidore. 

Jerome was their great authority on Scripture. The 
Moralia of Gregory the Great was the chief text-book in 
the field of moral theology, particularly at Armagh. Irish 
divinity students were also familiar with the works of 
Hilary, Ambrose, Athanasius, Orosius, Pope Leo, Chrys- 
ostom, Lactantius, Sedulius, Juvencus, Clement of Alex- 

39 






Ireland and the Making of Britain 



andria and Origen. Their favorite gospel was St. John. 
They made much use of the "Vetus Itala," an older bib- 
lical version than the Vulgate of Jerome, which displaced 
it. The Book of Psalms was their vade-mecum of praise 
and prayer, and many of them knew it by heart. With 
some the recital of the "Three Fifties" was a daily prac- 
tise. Their wide acquaintance with the old classical 
writers is further shown by the reminiscences of them 
which occur in their works, and by the reproductions of 
them in the Irish script or in Irish foundations all over 
Europe. 

In the great monastic universities, as well as in the 
lay schools, degrees were conferred just as they are con- 
ferred in the universities of to-day. There could be no 
clearer proof of the thoroughgoing character of Irish edu- 
cation, of the single-hearted pursuit of learning in the 
widest sense obtainable, and of the solid hard work of the 
scholars, than the elaborate system of graduation in learn- 
ing and the professions which the Irish schools had devel- 
oped in that early age. The "seven grades of wisdom" 
were carefully distinguished not merely in the schools 
but by the old national laws, and they are as numerous 
and distinctive as the academic titles and initials of mod- 
ern times — Senators, Fellows, LL.D., M.A., A.B., and 
the like. In the old Irish system each degree represented 
a year of study, and there were degrees both for the students 
and the professors, in the case of the first covering seven 
years, and in the case of the second, covering fourteen. 
The degrees marking the student's career beginning from 
the lowest to the highest were: Felmac, Freimeidhed, 
Fursaindidh, Sruth do Aill, Sai, Anruth, and Rosai. In 
addition to these, the higher degrees for the professor 
were Caogdach, Foghlaintidhe, Desgibal, Staruidhe, 

40 



Bridging the Old World and the New 

Foirceadlaidhe, Sair Canoine, and Drumcli. The High 
Professor was also called an Ollamh (Ollave), which rep- 
resented the highest degree in every profession or branch 
of learning. There were degrees conferred in the pro- 
fessional and lay schools which will be mentioned later, 
and degrees which represented other distinctions, all of 
which are described in the Brehon law treatises; but 
these may be taken as representative. 1 

i Brehon Laws, Vol. IV, Sequel of the Ctith Gablach; pp. 357-9; V, Small 
Primer; Cormac's Glossary, pp. 5, 6, 34, 53; Keating 1 , History, pp. 446, 454. 
See also Healy, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars, p. 596, seq.; Joyce, 
Social Hist. I, Chap. XI (Learning and Education) pp. 396-471; Richey, Short 
Hist., p. 83; Cambrensis Eversus, 277 seq.; O'Curry, Man. and Customs, I, 
79-83. 



41 



CHAPTER IV 

"HIGH SCHOLARS OF THE WESTERN WORLD" 

I. Learned Classes of Laymen. 2. Great Colleges Simultaneously 
Active from Sixth Century Onwards. 3. "Philosophy" and "Wis- 
dom." 4. Numbers of Students. 

i. Learned Classes of Laymen 

THE advantages of the liberal education thus pro- 
vided were widely distributed among the people 
of Ireland. "It has been sometimes asserted," says 
a modern writer, "that in early times in Ireland learning 
was confined within the walls of the monasteries ; but this 
view is quite erroneous. Tho the majority of the men of 
learning in Christian times were ecclesiastics, secular 
learning was by no means confined to the clergy. We 
have seen that the monastic schools had many lay pupils 
and that there were numerous lay schools; so that a con- 
siderable body of the lay community must have been more 
or less educated — able to read and write. Nearly all the 
professional physicians, lawyers (or brehons), poets, 
builders and historians, were laymen; a large proportion 
of the men chronicled in our annals, during the whole 
period of Ireland's literary preeminence, as distinguished 
in art and general literature, were also laymen; lay tutors 
were often employed to teach princes ; and, in fact, laymen 
played a very important part in the diffusion of knowledge 
and in building up that character for learning that ren- 
dered Ireland so famous in former times. One has only 
to glance through Ware's or O'Reilly's 'Irish Writers' or 
Dr. Hyde's 'Literary History of Ireland' to see the truth 
of this." 1 

1 Joyce, Social History of Ireland, I, 417. 

42 



"High Scholars of the Western World" 



Laymen figured among the most illustrious of the Irish 
schoolmen. Johannes Scotus Eriugena 1 was, it would 
seem, a layman. So was Flann "most famous among the 
many writers, one of the most learned men in Europe in 
philosophy, literature, history, poetry and science," pro- 
fessor of the college of Monasterboice, several of whose 
poems as well as his Book of Annals are preserved. Then 
there was Mugeor Ua More, father of the celebrated St. 
Malachy, "chief lector of divinity of this school (Ar- 
magh) and of all the rest of Europe," as the Annals of 
the Four Masters call him. "It is not the least striking 
circumstance in those dreary times," notes Cardinal New- 
man, "that in an age when even kings and great men often 
could not read, professors in the Irish colleges were, some- 
times men of noble birth. St. Malachy's father, though a 
member of a family of distinction, as St. Bernard tells us, 
was a celebrated professor of Armagh. History records 
the names of others similarly eminent, both by their de- 
scent and by their learning. It is impossible not to ad- 
mire and venerate a race which displayed such inex- 
tinguishable love of science and letters." 2 Apart from the 
monks, the average Irish layman was well educated. "The 
national tradition of monastic and lay schools preserved 
to Erin, what was lost in the rest of Europe, a learned 
class of laymen. Culture was as frequent and honorable 
in the Irish chief or warrior as in the cleric." 3 

To the monasteries and schools were attached teach 
scripta or scriptoria and libraries, furnished with waxen 

1 1 use the form Eriugena because it is etymologically correct and because 
it was one of the forms used by Johannes himself. Its meaning 1 is "born in 
Ireland" — "Eriu" being the most ancient form of the Gaelic name of Ireland 
known. John was known to his contemporaries chiefly as "John the Irishman" 
(Johannes Scotus). The form "Johannes Scotus Erigena" is not earlier than 
the seventeenth century. 

2 Historical Sketches, III. 279-80. 

SMrs. Alice Stopford Green, "Irish Nationality." 

43 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

tablets, parchments, inks, styles, and quills, where manu- 
scripts were edited and copied. To many of them were 
attached schools of art in illumination or ornamentation 
of books, in metal work, in painting, in sculpture, in carv- 
ing, and in enamel work. Clonmacnois and Kells had art 
schools which produced work in metal and in the illu- 
mination of books which has remained unapproached to 
our day. But Irish preeminence and influence in metal 
work are evidenced above all in the striking fact that al- 
most the entire extant ecclesiastical specimens of western 
Europe from the early medieval age are shown to be Irish 
or from Irish models. The vast colonnade of pillar towers 
that garlanded the island, the noble Rock of Cashel 
and the carved sea rocks of the Skelligs, furnish sufficient 
testimonials to Ireland's schools of architecture, during 
a period when architecture, in any true sense, was almost 
dead in Europe. 

Irish architects appear to have been restrained by 
ancient traditions of apostolic measurements, tho they 
could fit and dovetail great stones from ten to seventeen 
feet in length. Architect and sculptor were often com- 
bined in the same person, as in the Italians of the Renais- 
sance, for these Irishmen were nothing if not versatile. 1 

2. Great Colleges Simultaneously Active from 
Sixth Century Onward 

The standards of learning were high. The schoo 
themselves were "of unspeakable excellence," in the jud 
ment of Aldhelm, who had himself Irish masters. "Ire 
land had become the heiress to the classical and theologi 
cal learning of the western empire of the fourth and fift 
centuries, and a period of humanism was thus ushered i 

i See "Irish Archaeological Remains," fcy Benedict Fitzpatrick, Encycl 
pedia Americana (1918) vol. 15. 

44 



"High Scholars of the Western World" 

which reached its culmination during the sixth and fol- 
lowing centuries." 1 The graduates of the Irish acade- 
mies wrote Latin, not to speak of Greek, better than it 
was written by any other people in western Europe. 

They maintained the same method of education till the 
sixteenth century. In the year 1571, centuries after the 
golden age of Irish learning, amid the many misfortunes 
that had fallen on the country, Edmund Campion found 
Irish schools for law and medicine in operation, where 
Latin was still employed as a living tongue : "They speake 
Latine like a vulgar tongue, learned in their common 
schools of leach-craft and law, whereat they begin (as) 
children and hold on sixteene or twenty yeares, conning 
by roate the Aphorisms of Hypocrates and the Civill In- 
stitutions and a few other parings of these two faculties." 2 
The long course of sixteen to twenty years indicates that 
Ireland in eclipse still held to her ideal of thoroughness in 
education. 

Testimony as to the high and uniform level of educa- 
tion among the medieval Irish people is likewise afforded 
by the fact of the uniformity of the language. Old Irish 
differs considerably from the modern form of the lan- 
guage, but there were, as far as we can judge, no dialects 
In it. The same language was spoken and written in the 
Decies as in Tyrconnell, from the most southerly point of 
Ireland to the most northerly part of Scotland. A Gaelic 
book written in the sixth or ninth century would be under- 
stood from Cape Clear to the remotest parts of Scotland. 
The Irish in the "Book of Deir" is couched in the most 
[ancient form of Gaelic known to have been written in 
Scotland and still existing. The Gaelic in this book was 
probably written in the Abbey of Deir in Aberdeenshire 

1 Kuno Meyer, Ancient Irish Poetry, Pref . 

2 "Account of Ireland," p. 18. 

45 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 



in or before the twelfth century. Its language, however, 
is pure Irish, exactly paralleling the speech used in Irish 
books of the same age. Complete national unity, a uni- 
form literary speech, a like culture, prevailed through the 
broad Gaedhaltacht of Eire 1 and Alba. 

We have the testimony of the Irish records that the 
great Irish colleges were in active existence not at differ- 
ent periods but all together from the sixth century on- 
ward. When we bear in mind that there were also, dur- 
ing the whole period, the secular or lay schools, to which 
I will refer later, and which tho smaller were far more 
numerous and scattered all over the country — we shall 
have some idea, as one writer remarks, of the universal 
love of learning that existed in Ireland in those days and 
of the general spread of education. 2 

3. "Philosophy" and "Wisdom" 

Irish monasticism differed from continental mdnasti- 
cism in its intellectual outlook. Monachism in Egypt 
and on the European mainland simply represented flight 
from an apparently doomed and demoralized world. It 
was in response to the yearning and the need which men 
felt of getting away from worry and fear, and villainy 
and contention. It eschewed ambition and undue effort 

1 The Gaelic or Irish name for Ireland is Eire, genitive Eireann, whence 1 
Erin, also Ire-land. The Gaelic or Irish name for Scotland is Alba, which 
sometimes stood for the whole of Britain. 

2 The same schools in Ireland produced men of international fame in . 
widely different periods. Thus Moville produced Finnian and Columcille in 
the sixth century and Marianus Scotus in the eleventh. Armagh sent forth 
Benignus in the fifth, Gildas in the sixth, and Imar in the twelfth century. 
Clonard produced the famous "Twelve Apostles" in the sixth and Aileran in 
the seventh. Clonard produced Fintan and Moinenn in the sixth, Fursey and 
Cummian in the seventh, and Cormac and others in the ninth. Clonmacnois 
founded by Ciaran on Saturday, January 23, 544, produced Alithir in the 
sixth, King Guaire in the seventh, MacConcumba in the eighth, and Colgu, 
Josephus Scotus, perhaps Sedulius Scotus and a host of others in the ninth. 
Columbanus went from Bangor in the sixth, Dungal in the eighth and ninth, 
and Malachy in the twelfth. And so with the other great seats of learning 
in Ireland. 

46 



"High Scholars of the Western World" 

or strain, intellectual or otherwise. 1 It sought simply for 
retirement, rest, peace, recollection, contentment, simplic- 
ity, the condition of communing with God and waiting 
for the end. The woes and iniquity of the fallen em- 
pire had indeed convinced men that there was nothing 
more to be done for it; it was simply a case of sauve 
qui peut, and earnest men as a result turned their back 
upon it and fixed their eyes on the world to come. This 
was the spirit of early continental monachism, and as the 
monasteries were henceforth the only places where there 
was any attempt at education at all, an age that was truly 
dark settled on Europe. 2 

While asceticism in Ireland was highly esteemed, 
asceticism did not inhibit intellectual culture. On the 
contrary wisdom, learning, mental development, were 
ardently sought after by these very ascetics. "They drew 
back from no inquiry; boldness was on a level with faith," 
jsays Montalembert. "Their strength lay in those exercises 
of pure reason which go by the name of philosophy or 
wisdom," remarks Newman. They were "proficient be- 
yond all comparison in the world's wisdom," in the words 
of the ninth century "Monk of St. Gall." They were 
"celebrated for their philosophical knowledge" (sophia 
iclari) remarks another ancient writer. In their own 
estimation given in the Irish Annals they were the "high 
scholars of the western world," philosophers "without 
equals this side of the Alps," and "vessels full of all the 
wisdom and knowledge of their time." 

1 Thus the rule of St. Benedict forbade a Benedictine to own a book or a 
pen, and provided only two hours a day for reading 1 , and that pious reading-. 

2 The general belief that the Benedictines, who were the only "rivals" of 
,the Irish monks in the period under review, were learned men is totally 
[erroneous. No branch of the Benedictines making learned studies their aim 
Existed till the establishment of the Maurists in the seventeenth century. 
Men like Mabillon and Montfaucon have given the Benedictines their modern 
reputation for learning, but in the early medieval period the Benedictines 
were far from remarkable for culture. The work of the Irish monks has in 
large part been credited to them. 

47 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 



Their mental attitude is boldly enunciated by the in 
comparable Johannes Scotus Eriugena, himself in com 
parison with the age in which he lived as much a miracle 
as Plato or Augustine: "I am not so browbeaten by 
authority nor so fearful of the assault of less able minds 
as to be afraid to utter with fearless forehead what true 
reason clearly determines and indubitably demonstrates; 
especially as there must be question of such only among 
the wise, to whom nothing is more sweet to hear than true 
reason, nothing more delightful to investigate when it i 
found." 1 

"While on the mainland and in Britain budding Chris 
tianity and the germs of western culture, such as it wa 
were effectually trodden under foot by the various horde 
of Vandals, Alemanni, Huns, Franks, Heruli, Lango 
bards, Angles and Saxons, and the Merovingian kingdom 
sank lower and lower, when universal crudeness an 
depravity seemed to have gained the upper hand an 
the entire West threatened to sink hopelessly into bar 
barism, the Irish established several seminaries of learn 
ing in their own country," says a German authority. "Th 
standard of learning (in Bangor, Armagh, Clonmacnois 
Lismore) was much higher than with Gregory the Grea 
and his followers. It was derived without interruption 
from the learning of the fourth century, from men such 
as Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. Here also were to 
be found such specimens of classical literature as Virgil's 
works among the ecclesiastical writings, and an acquain- 
tance with Greek authors as well beside the opportunity 
of free access to the very sources of Christianity." 2 

iDe Divisione Naturae, V, I, p. 39. 

zzimmer, Preuss, Jahrb, 1887, trs. "Irish Element in Med. Culture," p. 19 



48 



"High Scholars of the Western World" 

4. Numbers of Students 

Judged by results the system of education in the Irish 
schools could hardly have been bettered in those days. 
The graduates it trained and disciplined assuredly left 
their impress on the epoch in which they lived. "From 
the schools of Ireland were to issue the men who were 
destined during the next two centuries not merely to leave 
their mark upon the church as theologians and founders 
of monasteries, but, further, to play an important part 
in molding the new civilization of the Frankish empire, 
to lay the foundations of modern philosophy, and to pro- 
mote the study of natural science and literature." 1 

These Irish seats of learning had large numbers of 
students. Armagh had 3,000, many of them, as at other 
places, from the Continent. At Clonard there were over 
3,000, all residing in and around the college, while Bangor 
and Clonfert had each as many. Other colleges had 
smaller numbers of students, ranging from 2,000 down 
to fifty. 2 At the head of each of these colleges was the 
"Fer leiginn" or "Man of Learning," who was sometimes 
a layman, generally a cleric, but always a scholar of great 
renown. The abbot presided over both institutions — 
monastery and school combined. 

Calling to mind the deserted aspect of the sites of these 
early establishments at the present day there is nothing 
j more remarkable in the early annals than the busy inter- 
course with the world which they disclose. Guests, 
illustrious by kingly descent or civil status or ecclesiastical 
rank, were ever coming and going. The abbots were 
wont to travel in chariots; in places like Iniscaltra, Clon- 
fert, Clonmacnois, Iona, Bangor and Monasterboice, in 

1 C. S. Bos well, "An Irish Precursor of Dante." 

2 See Joyce, Social History, I, 408; Skene, Celtic Scotland, II, p. 419. 

5 49 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

the vicinity of river, lake or sea they had also fleets of 
vessels at their disposal. Ships would come in laden 
with foreign merchandise and foreign visitors and stu- 
dents and they would bring with them the news of great 
events that were happening in foreign lands, of an earth- 
quake in Italy, of happenings in the Orkneys or in the 
valley of the Loire, of the progress of Irish foundations 
abroad, and of the sacred places in Palestine. There 
were horses and sheep and cattle, and farming operations 
were conducted on a great scale. There were crowds of 
monks and students in the streets, carrying great books, 
waxen tablets, and leather satchels, and from the cells 
of the masters came the hum of animated discussion or 
the voice of one speaking with authority. New buildings 
of wood or stone were being erected, round towers were 
slowly arising or a sculptor worked on the panels of a 
high granite cross, with the eager students around him 
watching. Now and then the crowds would grow silent 
and make a passage as some "high scholar of the western 
world" or "apostle of Erin" passed through them, a noble 
ascetic with long hair falling on his shoulders and painted 
eyelids, a figure clad in white homespun, one perhaps 
that had turned his back on the throne of Ireland and had 
thrown down the sword to take up the cultivation of the 
Scriptures and classic letters. Or a gayer group might 
appear on the scene, luxurious in raiment, young, hila- 
rious, care-free ; these too the crowds would regard with 
interest and deference — they were the offspring of the 
great reigning families of Leinster, of Munster, of Con- 
naught or Meath or Ulster, the tanist perhaps to the high- 
king amongst them, youths without a physical blemish 
and therefore of kingly potentiality, some the heirs of 
royal clans that had been honored in Eire before the 

50 



"High Scholars of the Western World" 

Christian era. University life in these great Irish centers 
was free from the excesses that were habitual in pagan 
Athens, but there was the same plenitude of high spirits, 
of eager ambition, of thirst after new knowledge, of 
reverence for great learning and lofty character, of fierce 
joy in intellectual conflict that marked generous youth in 
Athens and Rome as in the medieval universities that 
succeeded the establishment of those in Ireland. 1 

iSee Healy, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars; Burton, History of 
Scotland, I, 254 seq.; Joyce, Social History, I, Ch. XI, 417 seq.; Skene, Celtic 
Scotland, II, 75, 419-63; Reeves, Life of St. Columba, Adamnan, passim; 
Stokes, Anecdota Oxoniensia, Ser. 5, passim. 



5i 






CHAPTER V 

INSULA SANCTORUM ET DOCTORUM 

I. Intellectual Leader of Christendom. 2. Anglo-Saxon Students in 
Ireland. 3. Special Colleges for Princes. 4. Going to Ireland for 
Education Long Continued. 

i. Intellectual Leader of Christendom 

"\""OT only from the four corners of Ireland and 
\ Britain but also from every country in Europe 
students flocked into the Irish schools attracted by 
the fame of their professors and alumni, who with rare 
and sustained passion threw their souls into the explora- 
tion of the realm of knowledge with results that astonished 
civilized Europe. The celebrity of Ireland as the uni- 
versity of the West and the home of the most erudite and 
speculative of nations was thus bruited over the known 
world, which henceforth hailed the western isle as the 
intellectual leader of Christendom and the Island of Saints 
and Scholars. Of that enduring preeminence Darme 
steter felicitously says: "The classic tradition to all ap 
pearances dead in Europe burst into full flower in the 
isle of Saints and the Renaissance began in Ireland seven 
hundred years before it was known in Italy. For three 
centuries Ireland was the asylum of the higher learning 
which took sanctuary there from the uncultivated states 
in Europe. At one time Armagh, the religious capital 
of Christian Ireland, was the metropolis of civilization." 1 
The evidence attesting the number of foreign students 

1 English Studies, pp. 202-3. 

52 



Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum 

in the island has come from various sources in those 
days — 

"When Ireland flourished in fame 
Of Wealthe and goodnesse far above the rest 
Of all that bear the British Islands' name" 

as Spenser puts it. 

Hardly did Greece in the heyday of its magnetic power 
draw more powerfully to itself the adventurous intellects 
of foreign nations than Ireland during the centuries of 
its supremacy. We can appraise the surprising number 
of these foreigners from certain testimonies. Thus 
iEngus the Culdee, in his litany, written at the end of 
the eighth century, invokes the intercession of many hun- 
dreds of saints — Romans, Italians, Egyptians, Gauls, Ger- 
mans, Britons, Picts, Saxons or English, and natives of 
other countries — who were buried and venerated in 
Ireland, and whom he divided into groups, chiefly 
according to the localities of Ireland in which they 
sojourned and died. The lives of St. Patrick, Ciaran, 
Declan, Albeus, Enda, Maidoc, Senan, Brendan and other 
famous Irishmen furnish testimonies likewise indicating 
the large numbers of foreigners who crossed the seas to 
obtain a liberal education in the great Irish academies. 1 

Thus as early as the year 536, in the time of Senan, 
there arrived in Desmond from the Continent a company 
of fifty students and seminarians, who were led thither 
to study in the great establishment at Lismore and for 
the purpose of perfecting themselves in the practices of 
an ascetic life under Irish directors. On another occasion 
Senan saw seven ships sailing up the Shannon in one day 
laden with continental scholars for the great school of 
Clonfert, situated on an island in the river. 2 

lAnecdota Oxoniensia, Med. and Mod., Ser. 5, passim. 
2 Anecdota Oxon., Ser. 5, Life of St. Senan. 

53 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

An engraving of stone marks the grave of "Seven 
Romans" (VII Romani) near the church of St. Brecan 
in the great isle of Arran. 1 We are told that, among the 
multitudes of students who attended Armagh, many came 
from other countries besides Britain. 

The office of Cathaldus states that Gauls, Angles, Scots, 
Teutons and very many people of neighboring nations 
went to hear the professor's lectures at Lismore, and 
Morini's life of him, published in Rome, expresses in 
poetic terms the tradition of Lismore's greatness as the 
educational resort of foreigners. "Crowds of Gaulish 
students," writes Haureau, "sought the Irish shores in 
order to win back again from their former pupils the 
learning they had lost themselves." 2 

Iona, the least accessible perhaps of the Irish seats of 
learning, had all sorts of visitors besides monks and stu- 
dents. Columcille talked with mariners sailing south 
from the Orkneys, and others coming north from the Loire 
with their tuns of wine told him the news from conti- 
nental Europe and how a town in Istria had been wrecked 
by earthquake. From Arculf, a bishop of Gaul, who had 
traveled in Palestine, Syria, Constantinople, Alexandria 
and other parts of the East, Adamnan, the successor of 
Columcille as abbot, and his biographer, derived part of 
the information on which he based his work "De Locis 
Sanctis." Visitors from abroad, apart from students, were 
numerous in some of the other Irish establishments. Thus 
Paulinus, patriarch of Aquileia, who belonged to 
Charlemagne's court, has a poem addrest to one Zacharias, 

i It is reproduced by Petrie, in Ecclesiastical Architecture. 

2 Singularites, C. I. The crowds of foreign students that went to Ireland 
appear more remarkable from the fact that there is apparently only one 
authenticated instance of a continental student going- to a school in England, 
which was so much nearer, and which had usually to be crossed in the journey 
to Ireland. This was the case of Liudger, who studied at York in the time 
of Alcuin. 

54 



Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum 

apparently a Greco-Italian, who went from the Continent 
to Britain and Ireland and there distinguished himself. 1 

2. Anglo-Saxon Students in Ireland 

After the year 635 the Anglo-Saxons in particular 
crossed over to Ireland to enjoy the liberal advantages 
offered by its schools which had admitted a filtering of 
Northumbrian natives for several decades previously. 
Armagh was one of the favorite resorts of British and 
English students and continued to be frequented by them 
down to the time of the Conqueror. Gildas, the first 
historian of the Britons, seems to have been first a student 
and then regent at Armagh. Anglo-Saxon missionaries 
who went abroad almost all received their training in 
Ireland, and were usually led by Irishmen. Alcuin is 
stated to have spent some years at Clonmacnois. Sulger, 
afterwards bishop of St. Davids, spent from ten to fifteen 
years in study in Ireland. 

Bede provides striking testimony as to the numbers of 
English students in Ireland and the hospitality extended 
to them. He tells us that many of the English nation 
were living in Ireland, whither they had repaired either 
to cultivate the sacred studies or to lead a life of greater 
strictness. Some of them became monks; others were 
better pleased to apply to reading and study, going about 
from school to school through the cells of the masters; 
and all of them were most cheerfully received by the 
Irish, who supplied them gratis with books and instruc- 
tion. 2 

Camden in his description of Ireland says: "At that 

iZacharias f rater, domini venerande sacerdos, . 

Accola Brittaniae, Latii telluris alumne, 

Hiberniaeque decus (Quellen u. Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Phllo- 
logic des Mittelalters, vol. 3 (1908) p. 203). The 
poem is in MS. Oxford Bodl. Add. C 144, Sale XL 
3 Hist. Eccles. Ill, XXVII. 

55 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

age our Anglo-Saxons repaired on all sides to Ireland as 
to a general mart of learning. Whence we read in our 
writers of holy men that they went to study in Ireland 
(amandatus est ad disciplinam in Hiberniam)." 1 

Seven streets of a town called Kilbally, near Rahan, in 
what is now called King's County, were wholly occupied 
in the eighth century by Gauls or foreigners. "By crowds 
the readers resort thither carried over by ships" says Aid- 
helm. Round Aldhelm's period, Cadoc, Egbert, Willi- 
brord, 2 the two Ewalds, Plechelm, were conspicuous 
among those who went from England to get their educa- 
tion in Ireland. 

"But not by the Anglo-Saxons alone," says Zimmer, 
"was Ireland looked upon as the highest seminary of 
learning; the Franks were also at this time strongly at- 
tracted by her great fame. Bede mentions a Frank named 
Agilberct who spent several years in the study of theology 
in Ireland and on leaving that country was persuaded to 
remain for a time in England. On his return to his own 
country he was made bishop of Paris, where he died at 
an advanced age. But more striking than all these indi- 
vidual instances is the indisputable fact that the Irish 
were destined to become instructors of the Germans, 
Franks, and Alemanni in every department of knowledge 
of the time." 3 

An interesting visitor in Ireland was Haemgils, emi- 
ment for his good works, who was the friend of Drythelm, 
whose vision of the other world is told in detail by Bede. 
"He is still living a solitary life in the island of Ireland, 

i Britannia. 

2 Alcuin wrote a life of Willibrord, a completely Hibernicized Angle, and in 
it he furnishes testimony to the flourishing state of the Irish schools. Willi- 
brord left Northumbria, Quia in Hibernia scholasticam eruditionem viguisse 
audivit. — (Vita "Willib. c 4.) 

spreussiche Jahrb., 1887, Jan. trs. "The Irish Element in Med. Culture," 
pp. 42-3. 

56 



Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum 

supporting his declining age with coarse bread and cold 
water," says Bede. It was from him that Bede heard the 
story of Drythelm's vision as told by Drythelm himself 
to King Aldf rid. Haemgils is commemorated among the 
hermits in the Liber Vitae. 

3. Special Colleges for Princes 

It is noteworthy too that the reigning families of Europe 
sent their heirs to Ireland to be educated. The French 
prince, Dagobert, son of Sigibert, king of Austrasia, spent 
eighteen years in Ireland. He was educated at the royal 
college of Slane, near Tara, where his fellow students 
included many Irish princes. On his return to France 
he succeeded his father as ruler and had many Irishmen 
at his court. 

Dagobert, in some accounts, is said to have been banished 
to Ireland by the major-domo Grimold, who sought to 
usurp the kingly authority for his own family. Eddi's 
life of Wilfrid tells us that his friends and relatives, hav- 
ing learnt from travelers (a navigantibus) that he was 
living and in perfect health in Ireland, sent envoys to 
Wilfrid, then bishop in the north of England, asking him 
to send for him from Scotland and Ireland (de Scottia 
et Hibernia ad se invitasset) .* Wilfrid consented to do 
this. Dagobert thereupon set out from Ireland and re- 
turned to his own country, where, enriched by the arms 
and forces of his companions, he occupied the throne. 
The king, remembering his obligation to Wilfrid, offered 
him when visiting on his way to Rome the largest bish- 
opric in his realm, namely, that of Strassburg. Arbogast, 
an Irishman, and nineteenth bishop of Strassburg, is said 
to have died at this time, i. e., July 21, 679. 

1 This is apparently the first instance of the word Scottia being used in 
contrast to Hibernia. It may be a later corruption. 

57 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

Oswald, king of Northumbria, and his brother Oswiu, 
received their education in Ireland and at Iona. The 
two young men became proficient in the Irish tongue, 
Bede tells us: "Oswiu .... illorum etiam lingua optime 
imbutus." Aldfrid, too, king of Northumbria, the son, 
according to some accounts, of an Irish mother, and the 
friend of Adamnan of Iona, was educated also in Ireland, 
and seems to have spent much time at Mayo of the Saxons, 
founded by Colman. He spoke Irish fluently, like his 
predecessor, and traveled around every principality in 
Ireland. Very interesting is the poem from his hand, 
which has survived both in Gaelic and Latin, in the light 
it throws on the Ireland of the period, and in which the 
note of worship, common to all the Anglo-Saxons where 
Ireland was concerned, is almost as well defined as in the 
pages of Bede. The first two verses follow in their En- 
glish translation : 

I found in Inisfail the Fair 
In Ireland while in exile there 
Women of worth, both grave and gay men 
Learned clerics, heroic laymen. 

I travelled its fruitful provinces round 
And in every one of the five I found 
Alike in church and in palace hall 
Abundant apparel and food for all. * 

Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury, dedicated to Aldfrid a 
poetic epistle in Latin meter in which he congratulated 
the king on his good fortune in having been educated in 
Ireland. Aldhelm's own master was the Irish Maeldubh 
or Maelduf, from whom the city of Malmesbury derives 
its name. 

Clonard and Slane, near Tara, seem to have been schools 

i See Dublin Review, XXI, 519. 

58 



Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum 

favored by the sons of Irish monarchs and princes. Thus 
we read in the Annals of the Four Masters under A. D. 645 
that Cathal, second son of Ragallach, king of Connaught, 
then a student at Clonard, with a party of twenty-seven 
of his fellow students, all young laymen from Connaught, 
sallied forth from the college and went to take vengeance 
on the assassin of his royal father. In the case of families 
of the highest rank, however, such as those of the high 
monarch of Ireland, the young princes were generally 
educated in the royal household, the tutors residing at the 
court. 

4. Going to Ireland for Education Long Continued 

The offspring of Irish families settled in Britain and 
elsewhere likewise came to Ireland in great numbers to 
seek an education in the liberal arts. From Scotland they 
of course came in a continual stream, not for a few cen- 
turies but right up to the sixteenth century; but of course 
Scotland was to all intents and purposes an Irish province 
and large portions of it remain part of the Gaedhaltacht 
to this day. But they came also from that part of Britain 
now denominated Wales, which was also for some cen- 
turies an Irish colony, as will be later made plain, and 
they came from Brittany in France. The perpetual va et 
vient that went on between Ireland and Wales is mir- 
rored in the lives of eminent Welshmen and Irishmen 
of the early medieval age. A younger Gildas, born of 
Irish parents in Wales and flourishing about the beginning 
of the ninth century, who wrote a work which he dedi- 
cated to Rhabanus Maurus of Fulda, went to Ireland to 
be educated. Marcus, born in Britain or Brittany, and 
later bishop of Soissons, where he was preceptor to Eric 
of Auxerre, likewise received his education in Ireland. 

59 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

He may be identical with the Irish Marcus who, being 
on his way to Rome, in the year 822 wrote in Italy a 
history of Britain, but he seems to have been a younger 
man. 

In the life of Fndolin, the son of an Irish reigning 
prince, who established the foundation of Seckingen on 
the Rhine, and other foundations at Helera on the 
Moselle, Hiliaricum near the Saar, in the Vosges Moun- 
tains and in other parts of France and Switzerland, 
Ireland is represented as enjoying an extraordinary abun- 
dance of material resources and of secular riches, while 
the wealthy gave with liberal hand to the poor and be- 
stowed from their means what was necessary to maintain 
schools and all manner of useful learning. The education 
received by Fridolin, who later on established schools 
for young women and men in his Rhine and other founda- 
tions, is reported to have been of a nature suitable to the 
circumstances of his parents and to his own rank. He 
pursued with success the study of profane and sacred 
literature and while he learned, it is recorded, the specula- 
tions of Pythagoras and of Plato, he was most assiduous 
in poring over the pages of the sacred scriptures. Allu- 
sions such as these, found in profusion in the lives of 
medieval Irishmen, serve to present an exalted impression 
of the classic taste and acumen possest by the educated 
classes in Ireland. 1 

This going to school in Ireland was not a matter of one 
short generation. It became traditional and continuous. 
Thus a part of the university city of Armagh became 
known as "Saxon Armagh," and likewise part of Mayo 

1 See Vita Fridolini, auctore Balthero monacho, Mon. Germ. Hist., Script, 
rer. Merc-ving. Ill, 351-65, ed. Krusch; Colgan, Acta S. Hib., Louv. 1645, I, 
481, seq.; Mone, Quellensammlung der badischen Landesgeschichte, Karls. 
1845, I; Acta SS. Mar., I, pp. 433-441. 

6o 



Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum 



became known as "Mayo of the Saxons." The Danish in- 
roads interrupted the stream but did not stop it. The 
rise of the numerous Irish foundations in Britain and 
on the Continent naturally served to make the long journey 
to Ireland superfluous and diminished the volume of 
those who resorted thither. But the attraction of Ireland 
as the university of the West long remained potent, and 
foreign students were found in Ireland in the eleventh 
and twelfth centuries as well as in the sixth and seventh. 
Aldhelm's petulant outburst in the seventh century over 
the students who neglected the English schools and flocked 
to Ireland is matched by parallel testimony in the eleventh 
century. "Why does Ireland," writes Aldhelm to three 
English students just returned from Ireland, "pride her- 
self on a sort of priority in that such numbers of students 
flock there from England?" On the other hand we have 
the biographer of Sulger in the eleventh century telling 
us how he went to Ireland to study "after the fashion of 
his ancestors." 



Si 



CHAPTER VI 

LAY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY 

I. Professional and Lay Education in Ireland. 2. Synod of Drumceat, 
575 A. d. 3. Original and Independent Culture. 4. Columbanus and 
Gregory — "Irish Ancients Who Were Philosophers." 

i. Professional and Lay Education in Ireland 

THE evidence that has been adduced will give an 
idea of the number of laymen attending the monas- 
tic universities in Ireland, and the facts are plain 
that Irishmen holding civil and military positions and 
having no clerical or monastic status were men of culti- 
vated intellect and gained high distinction in studies that 
outside of Ireland were regarded as the special preserve 
of clerics. The idea of the nobleman or soldier or mer- 
chant or other person not an ecclesiastic cultivating letters 
was almost unknown to continental Europe in the Middle 
Ages even in the East. But it was an idea as familiar 
to the Irish as to the Athenians in the age of Pericles 
or to the Romans under the earliest Caesars. It was 
an idea, not imported with Greco-Roman culture, but 
indigenously handed down from the pagan era, and an 
idea that continued to gain development following the 
Christianization of the island. 

In addition therefore to the larger centers of learning 
on which the indestructible renown of Ireland is based 
as the medieval home of saints and scholars there were 
the more distinctively Irish schools, having fewer pupils, 
but multiplied all over the island. These schools wen 
devoted to purely secular learning, and in them the pas- 

62 



Lay Schools and Schools of Philosophy 



sionate attachment of the Irish people to their language, 
their literature, their laws, the preservation of their his- 
tories and genealogies, the development of their art and 
the historic elements of their distinctive civilization, found 
full expression. To read, write and speak in its fulness 
and precision the Irish language, to learn Irish grammar 
and the rules of poetical composition, to master geography 
and history, especially the geography and history of 
Ireland, and to acquire a knowledge of Irish poetry and of 
the Irish epic tales — such was the curriculum of these lay 
schools in so far as they aimed at a liberal or professional 
education in the field of Irish studies. There were schools 
of the brehons, the bards, and the seanchaidhe or his- 
torians, there were schools of medicine, and schools of the 
military art, these last not dissimilar to the gymnasia of 
Athens where Plato and Aristotle first taught. These 
schools of the seanchaidhe, the poets and the bards had 
a curriculum founded on the teaching transmitted from 
the Druids, and that teaching was largely confined to the 
Irish studies enumerated above. To these studies the 
professional schools added the study of law, of medicine, 
or of the military art as the case might be. 

The ideal of secular schools, presided over by lay pro- 
fessors, and attended by lay students, devoted to purely 
lay and professional studies, is an ideal so foreign to the 
spirit of the Middle Ages, and particularly to the spirit 
of the governors of the Christian church in the early 
part of those ages, that considerable skepticism appears 
quite natural in respect to their existence in Ireland. But 
the truth is that the proofs bearing on the activity of 
these schools are as copious and convincing as in the case 
of those larger Irish establishments the intellectual leaders 
of which were honored throughout Christendom and in 

63 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 



relation to the age in which they lived were to be counted 
amongst the greatest philosophers and preceptors the 
world has known. 

Irish records — annals, tales, and treatises — contain 
numerous references to these Irish lay schools, but the 
old Irish law tracts, some of which have in recent years 
been edited and published, 1 furnish us with information 
in regard to them more precise than the evidence found in 
any other source. They outline the duties which the mas- 
ter owes his pupils, and the return which the pupils owe 
the master. They describe the proper plan and arrange- 
ments of the schools, their different divisions and locations. 
They are exceedingly minute in describing the curriculum, 
the number of years proper to the course of studies, the 
studies themselves, the varying learned degrees and the 
accomplishments they represent. We learn for example 
that a lay college comprised three distinct establishments, 
housed in three different buildings, grouped according to 
a custom that came down from pagan times. We find 
references to the college libraries, as in the case of Dalian 
Forgaill (sixth century), celebrated as the contemporary 
and elegist of Columcille, who in the Book of Leinster is 
represented as saying: "Among the schools with libraries 
(etir scoluib scripta) thou hast read the mysteries of the 
Ro-sualt." 2 

We learn that the master owed the student "instruction 
without reservation and correction without harshness" as 
well as gratuitous maintenance, if too poor to support 
himself. This hospitality was as liberally dispensed to 
the foreigner as to the Irish themselves. Thus Bede tells 
us, as before noted, that a great many of the higher and 

i Sequel to Crith Gabhlach, Brehon Laws IV. Also Brehon Laws V, 27 
(Small Primer) and II, p. 18 seq. See Joyce's Social History, Vol. I, Ch. XI, 
p. 417 seq., where details and references are copious. 

2 Silva Gadelica, 480. ii; 527. 

64 



Lay Schools and Schools of Philosophy- 
lower classes of the English lived in Ireland in his day 
for the sake of study, and while some of them became 
monks, others preferred to give themselves over to getting 
an education, passing from one prof essor's house to another. 
These foreigners, Bede adds, were cheerfully received 
by the Irish, who provided them with food and shelter, 
books and teaching, without payment of any kind. 1 Doubt- 
less most of these Anglo-Saxon students pursued their 
studies in the monastic colleges, but others must have 
studied in the lay schools as well. They would all carry 
a knowledge of Irish and of Irish poetry back to their 
own country and'we have to keep facts such as these in 
mind in considering the early sources of English litera- 
ture. 

The masters, according to the old Irish law tracts, were 
also answerable for the misdeeds of the students, except 
in one case only, namely, when the scholar was a foreigner 
and paid for his food and education. The degrees of 
wisdom were given in the lay schools as in the monastic 
schools, and the laws describe these learned degrees 
minutely, giving the Irish name of each, and the number 
of years of study required to attain them. Thus the 
highest degree in poetry, as in other branches of study, 
was the ollamh (ollave), and then after one another, 
according to their rank, came the Cli, the Cana, the Doss, 
the MacFuirmeadh, and the Forloc. The students pur- 
sued their learning for twelve years or perhaps more. At 
last when a poet graduated as an ollamh he knew 350 kinds 
of versification and was able to repeat 250 prime stories 
and a hundred stories of the second rank. We still have 
the remains of the books from which the poets drew their 
knowledge. 2 

1 Ec. Hist., Book III, XXVII. 

2 Book of Ballymote, H. 2.12, a parchment MS. in Trinity College, Dublin. 
See Hyde, MacTernan Prize Essays II, Irish Poetry, p. 65. 

65 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

2. Synod of Drumceat, 575 A. D. 

As students in Ireland, both Irish and foreign, who 
so desired, were not only taught but supported gratui- 
tously, their numbers became in time so burdensome to 
the country — that legislation on the subject was found 
necessary as early as the imperial parliament and synod of 
Drumceat, A. D. 575. At this celebrated parliament, to 
attend which Columcille and King Aidan voyaged with 
numerous retinues from Scotland, lands were formally set 
apart for the endowment of some of the educational estab- 
lishments, which survived as public institutions down to 
the English destructions of the seventeenth century. 

The secular education of Ireland was reorganized by 
this parliament which erected a chief bardic seminary 
or college for each of the five kingdoms, and under each 
of these mother establishments a group of minor schools, 
one in each tuath or cantred, all liberally endowed. The 
heads of these schools were ollaves of poetry and litera- 
ture and were all laymen. 1 The curriculum included law, 
history, antiquities, poetry, and other Irish studies and, 
as the arts and professions in Ireland were largely heredi- 
tary, these schools were often presided over by members 
of the same family for generations. 2 

At this same parliament, over which the High Monarch 
presided, 3 the Bardic Order in Ireland was largely 
deprived of its extraordinary privileges and wealth, 
which had begun to make it a burden to the peo- 
ple. At this time, Keating tells us, nearly a third of the 

1 O'Curry, Manners and Customs, I, 78. 

2 See, for example, Hy Fiachrach, 79 and 167, bottom; Keating', Hist. 455. 

3 Numerous other measures, including a grant of self determination to 
the Irish kingdom of Scotland, were enacted at Drumceat. Following the fall 
of Temhair or Tara, as the legislative capital of Ireland, the Irish par- 
liaments held their sessions at various centers, such as Usnach, Tailtenn, and 
Drumceat. 

66 



Lay Schools and Schools of Philosophy 

men of Erin belonged to the poetic order, but the parlia- 
ment reduced the numbers, allowing only to each 
provincial prince and to each lord of a cantred one regis- 
tered ollave or professor. On these ollaves it was or- 
dained that their patrons should settle an hereditary- 
revenue. 1 

Despite restrictions the literary profession continued to 
enjoy great wealth. Some idea of the style of living of 
the learned professions may be gathered from the income 
enjoyed by the literati of Tir Conaill (present county 
Donegal). It has been computed that no less than the 
amount represented by two thousand pounds sterling or 
ten thousand dollars was set aside annually in this small 
state for the maintenance of the class. 

It has been ascertained from the public legal records 
that the rental of the landed properties of several of these 
professors of literature would at the present day amount 
to upwards of four or five hundred pounds sterling or two 
thousand five hundred dollars annually, besides the 
guerdons they received from the ruling sovereigns and 
princes. Many of them are stated to have maintained 
three or four schools on their estates, at which pupils were 
boarded and educated gratuitously. 2 The Irish Triads 
mention as the "three coffers whose depth is not known" 
— "the coffers of a chieftain, of the church, of the privi- 
leged poet." 

3. Original and Independent Culture 

The light thus shed on the prosecution of the ordinary 
studies of the schools, on the cultivation and transmission 
of the liberal arts, on the devotion to music and poetry 
and history and literature and the concomitant depart- 

1 See Trans. Ossianic Society, Vol. V, xxxi. 

2 See Trans. Ossianic Society, Vol. V, xxii. 

6 7 



' Ireland and the Making of Britain 

ments of learning, will therefore be admitted as not lack- 
ing in clearness. But is there any evidence that the Irish 
intellectuals went further than this? Did their studies 
ever soar above the mechanical tradition of Bede and 
Rhabanus Maur in the West or of Choeroboscus and 
Photius in the East? Did they, like them, merely learn 
by rote what had been handed down to them by Greek and 
Roman teachers and pass it on to newer generations? Is 
there any evidence of an Irish independent culture, of 
a self-sustaining mental cultivation, of a development 
and expansion of knowledge, of any addition of learning, 
and of the employment of the varied powers of the mind 
in the investigation of new fields of thought, and the fer- 
tilization of new ideas? It would indeed be remarkable 
that an Ireland capable of improvising the habitations 
and paraphernalia of knowledge as no other land was 
able to improvise them and of maintaining its educational 
organizations through periods of time of which no other 
people before them could show a like record, should not 
have added to the stores of knowledge represented by 
Greco-Roman and Christian learning. 

Undoubtedly Ireland so added. But we must remem- 
ber that Ireland's main energies were directed along two 
important channels — namely, the preservation and devel- 
opment of her own immemorial culture and civilization, 
as distinct and unique as the civilization of Greece or 
Egypt, and the transmission to the newer peoples of 
Europe of Greco-Roman learning transfused by the doc- 
trines of Christianity. Her devotion to her own culture 
has enriched the world with an heroic literature even in 
its fragments inferior only to the Grecian, and the example 
of that devotion probably preserved to the world such 
monuments of early literature as at this day belong to 

68 



Lay Schools and Schools of Philosophy 

England, to Germany, and to Scandinavia. Had Irish 
influence in the young ages of her faith been directed to 
the destruction of pagan literature and art, as it was di- 
rected in some other lands, the early literature of Ireland 
as of these other countries might have been lost to the 
world forever. But it was not so directed, and indeed 
it was in those very ages of faith, when Christian enthu- 
siasm flamed throughout the island, that the Irish epics, 
having received their shaping in the mouths and minds 
of the people through unnumbered generations, were first 
committed to writing and to literary recension. 

As to Ireland's cultivation of philosophy the great name 
of Johannes Scotus Eriugena constitutes a sufficient an- 
swer. His works have been preserved to us because they 
existed on the Continent. The works of the schools of 
thought he represented have been destroyed because those 
works remained in Ireland. Of the Irish philosophers 
and the Irish schools of philosophy contemporary with 
him he speaks indeed in a manner reminiscent of the 
interlocutions to which we are accustomed in the dialogs 
of Plato, and indeed it is on the strength of his verbal 
modes and his knowledge of Greek that the false tradition 
of his having been a student in Athens was built up. "I 
quitted," says he, speaking of his youth in Ireland, "no 
place or temple where the philosophers were accustomed 
to compose or deposit their secret works without in- 
specting it; and there was not one amongst such scholars, 
as might be supposed to possess any knowledge of philo- 
sophical writings, whom I did not question." 1 

We can compute the strength and originality of a 
Johannes Scotus Eriugena and his circle and the specu- 
lative activity of the schools that produced him by re- 

i Wood's Hist, and Antiquit, Univers. Oxon. in fol. 1674, Vol. I, p. 15. 

69 , 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

calling that the Byzantines with all the accumulations 
of Greek learning at their command were unable to 
produce anyone like him. Photius, the contemporary of 
Eriugena, and like him a tutor to emperors, despite his 
many-sided erudition and devotion to Aristotelian studies, 
which illumined a Constantinopolitan age of darkness 
paralleling the age of iron, of lead and of gloom 
(saeculum .... ferreum .... plumbeum .... obscurum) 
in the West, is more easily comparable to Rhabanus 
Maur or Servatus Lupus than to Eriugena. Even Psellus, 
whose very profession was philosophy and who revived 
the study of Plato as far as Arabia and the distant East, 
is dwarfed to the dimensions of a mere pedagog when 
tested by the standards of the mighty Irishman, who, in 
an age hopelessly bridled by authority and tradition, 
worked out a theory of the universe in the untrammeled 
spirit of Augustine and the noblest of the ancients un- 
known in that age save in the Irish schools. 

4.. columbanus and gregory — "irish ancients who 
Were Philosophers" 

Johannes Scotus Eriugena wrote late in the ninth cen- 
tury, but "philosophus" had become almost as synony- 
mous as "peregrinus" for the Scotus or Irishman at a 
much earlier date. Midway in the sixth century when 
Columbanus was a youth we find the scientists of the 
Irish schools rating themselves as very much superior 
to those of Gaul or Italy. Thus Columbanus in one 
of the letters to Gregory, written at Luxeuil, tells the 
pope that the Irish astronomers and computists held in 
very low esteem Victorius of Aquitaine, whose cycle, 
drawn up in 497 A. D., had been adopted in the Gallican 
and other churches. "For know thou" he says writing 

70 



Lay Schools and Schools of Philosophy 

c. 598 A. D., "that by our masters and the Irish ancients, 
who were philosophers and most wise computists in con- 
structing calculations, Victorius was not received, but held 
more worthy of ridicule or of excuse than as carrying 
authority." 1 

In this letter to Gregory, as elsewhere, the extraordinary 
self-assurance of the Irish schoolmen, which was so long 
to exercise the popes and the religious world of Europe 
generally, breaks out thus early despite the overflowing 
affection and reverence manifestly cherished by the won- 
derful old monk for the chair of Peter. With all the 
consciousness of a superior culture he tells the great pope, 
who was little accustomed to counsel so imperiously given, 
what would be the Irish attitude if Irish opinion on 
Easter observance was not endorsed by him: "For I 
frankly acknowledge to thee that anyone who goes against 
the authority of Saint Hieronymus will be repudiated as 
a heretic among ^he churches of the West; for they ac- 
commodate their faith in all respects unhesitatingly to 
him with regard to the Divine Scriptures." And he adds, 
"And if, as I have heard from thy holy Candidus, 2 thou 
shouldst be disposed to say in reply that things confirmed 
by ancient usage cannot be changed, error is manifestly 
ancient, but truth which reproves it is ever more ancient 
still." To Haureau the Latin poems of Columbanus 
"read like the works of an entire pagan" while his monas- 
tic rule "appears to have been composed by a league of 
philosophers." 3 

iSt. Col. to Greg. Epist. CXXVII, Bk. IX Registrum Epistolarum, C. 598-9; 
also in Collectanea Sacra, Fleming; and Migne, Pat. Lat., LXXVII, 1061- 
6 LXXX, 263. 

2 Candidus was Pope Gregory's representative traveling in Gaul. He ap- 
pears to have spent some time at the foundation of Columbanus at Luxeuil, 
as appear from their own words. Augustine and the other missionaries sent 
to England also stayed at Luxeuil. Columbanus and his Irish colleagues, who 
spent some time in England trying to reclaim the natives, appear not to have 
minimized the bad reputation of the Islanders in the mind of Augustine. 

3 Singularites, chap. 1. 

71 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

Columbanus (543-615) in Ireland and Gaul was the 
contemporary of Cassiodorus (490-585) in Ravenna and 
Squillace. Cassiodorus, who showed a twofold devotion 
to the Christian and heathen classics, peculiar in that 
age to Irish scholars almost alone, was the contemporary 
in the East of the Emperor Justinian and of Priscian, and 
in the West of Odoacer, successor to Romulus Augustus, 
the last Roman emperor, and Boethius — "the last of the 
Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged 
for their countrymen." 1 Boethius and Cassiodorus were 
the final representatives of Roman learning as Colum- 
banus was one of the first representatives of Irish learning 
in Gaul and Italy. 2 Thus the affiliation of Irish culture 
with the ancient Greek and Roman cultures is as visible 
and authentic as the position, revealed by Zeuss, of the 
Irish language in the inner shrine of the Indo-European 
group as sister to Latin and Greek. The Teutonic wedge 
of barbarism, thrust in the fifth century into a triple asso- 
ciation that had been maturing for centuries, while it 
seriously impaired, did not destroy the continuity in the 
tradition of civilization. 

1 Gibbon, Bury's, IV, 197-204, C. 395. 

2 The activity of the continental Celt in Roman literature began early. 
Virgil was a native of Gallia Cisalpina — his name is cognate with the Irish 
Fearghil, anglicized Farrell. Livy, Catullus, Cornelius Nepos, the elder and 
younger Pliny, Domitius Afer, Marcus Aper, Favorinus, Ausonius, Numan- 
tianus, Sulpicius Severus, Sidonius Appollinarius were other Gauls or Celts 
who attained fame in Latin letters. The Celts also gave Rome several of its 
emperors — Claudius, Caracalla, Antoninus, Galba, Otto, Vitellus, Vespasian, 
Domitian, and Maximus, this last a Briton. The Celtic tongue died out in 
Gaul in the fourth century, but St. Jerome intimates that the Galatians in Asia 
Minor still spoke it in his day: "While the Galatians in common with the 
whole East speak Greek, their own language is almost identical with that 
of the Treviri." (Pref. Book II, Comment, on Galatians.) 



72 



CHAPTER VII 

TRANSMITTING THE TREASURES OF 
ANCIENT LEARNING 

I. High Culture of Ireland a Living Reality. 2. Destruction of Irish 
Libraries. 3. Irish Genealogy of Carolingian Schools. 4. Organiz- 
ing the City and Christian Society. 

i. High Culture of Ireland a Living Reality 

WE have thus brought up before our eyes an Ireland 
whose authentic right to the varied titles tradi- 
tionally bestowed upon her as the hearthstone of 
civilization, the school of the West, and the habitation 
of learning, is based on a living reality and not on an 
idle dream. There was hardly a city or clan in Ireland 
that had not its schools. There was hardly a valley, a 
hill, or an isle that did not resound to the voices of teacher 
and student. And all this ardor of learning, this ever- 
lasting contest of mind with mind, this endless catechizing 
and philosophizing and multiplication of books and suc- 
cession of dynasties of hereditary teachers and of school 
on school was peculiar and unique to Ireland alone, save 
where Irishmen sought to reconstruct abroad and gradu- 
ally succeeded in there reconstructing the intellectual 
life and world they had known at home. To the Irish 
in the West and the Byzantines in the East had Fate thus 
committed as trustees that Greco-Roman civilization in 
which had been summed up the heritage of all preceding 
ages. 

It is a circumstance eloquent of the destructions that 
have been the rule in Ireland in modern times that of 

73 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

the varied mass of literature produced by her when her 
intellectual supremacy wielded undisputed sway and her 
writers were most prolific the merest fragments have been 
preserved in Ireland itself. A few examples of the Gos- 
pels in Latin, their unearthly beauty a slender passport 
to posterity, still remain to us from that age. One of 
them, the Book of Armagh, has continuous narratives in 
the Irish of the period, and others, like the Book of Deir, 
have Irish interlinear and marginal notes. But of the 
Irish literature dating from the sixth or seventh to the 
eleventh century the total is scanty in Ireland. Even 
the later monuments, the Book of the Dun Cow, the Book 
of Leinster and the others, were, like the Ardagh Chalice 
and the Tara Brooch, only saved by first being lost. These 
encyclopedic vellums contain many copies of works be- 
longing to an earlier age, but we have to go, not to Ireland 
itself, but to the Continent for the earlier authentic litera- 
ture in Irish and Latin produced in Ireland or abroad 
in the medieval period prior to the eleventh century. 

The Irish libraries abroad, St. Gall, Rebais, Bobbio and 
others, almost all founded in the seventh century, proved 
the great treasure houses of the Roman classics. In 
Ireland itself the mother libraries of St. Gall, Rebais 
and Bobbio, went down in the common ruin of Irish 
civilization. On the Continent the Lombard and the Hun 
showed themselves less destructive than the Tudor and 
Cromwellian Englishman in Ireland. Eighty-one years 
before the English reformers sent by Henry VIII began 
the first war of conquest on Ireland that was to have a 
measure of success, 1 Constantinople fell before the Turk. 

i The so-called "Norman Invasion" or "Conquest" of Ireland was in reality 
an emigration from Britain of Norman, French, Cambro-French, Flemish — 
all French-speaking- — who began to become Irish as soon as they landed, 
tho a foreign colony or pale containing newcomers existed on the coast. This 
also tended to disappear. 

74 



Transmitting Treasures of Ancient Learning 

But the Turk showed himself no Vandal in respect to 
the Greek manuscripts of the Byzantine cities, which 
must have been anathema to him. He sold them by the 
cartload; he did not deliberately destroy them. But the 
tradition of destruction which the Englishmen carried 
with him to Ireland embraced everything except what 
was capable of being turned to the use of the English- 
man himself. The libraries attached to the great monastic 
universities we know were very large. Their contents 
were in the main in Irish and in Latin. There may 
have been a goodly number of Greek manuscripts also, 
for the evidence is that the Irish scholars were in posses- 
sion of Greek works unknown on the Continent, for exam- 
ple, the Timaeus of Plato, their quotations from which are 
independent of the translation of Chalcidius. 

The testimony is that the Irish were in possession of 
Latin manuscripts that did not otherwise exist out of 
Ireland. The Irish colony of literati in Liege in the 
time of the Emperor Lothair II were in possession for 
example of the In Pisonem of Cicero, a work of which 
only one other copy existed on the Continent. The oldest 
Horace is an Irish manuscript now at Berne. The oldest 
Ovid is a Cambro-Irish manuscript now at Cambridge. 
The oldest manuscript in Switzerland, which is an em- 
porium of ancient manuscripts, is not a Roman or a Greek 
manuscript, but an Irish manuscript. It is a biography 
of a sixth century Irishman, written in Latin by a seventh 
century Irishman, and transcribed by an eighth century 
Irishman. It is certain that of the 628 Latin authors 
whose works have been totally lost, and that of the 107 
more Latin authors whose works only partially survive, 
many examples must have existed in the medieval Irish 
libraries. We have the testimony of Alcuin as to the 

75 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 



number of books in the library of York in his day. If a 
library so much superior to any on the Continent could 
have been gathered together in England with its ever 
insurgent barbarism which swept schools and libraries 
away in a night we can well imagine, apart from the evi- 
dence, how wealthy and numerous must have been the 
libraries in Ireland where the great academies grew in 
maturity from age to age in the midst of an ever-develop- 
ing national civilization. 

Ludwig Traube draws attention to the numerous hand 
libraries which the Irish schoolmen carried with them 
to the Continent and points to the probability that Sedulius 
Scotus, in making his remarkable collection of excerpts 
from the Roman classics in the manuscript originally 
owned by Nicolaus von Cues, used manuscripts written 
in Ireland, since many of these ancient works were un- 
known on the Continent. His copy of the De Re Militari 
of Vegetius was procured by him on the Continent, but 
he also quotes from almost unknown works of Cicero, 
Lactantius, Valerius, and numerous other authors. While 
it appears that Sedulius made excerpts from some of the 
manuscripts in Liege, it appears also likely that other 
excerpts were made by him as a student in the course of 
his reading in his alma mater in Ireland. 1 

2. Destruction of Irish Libraries 

But it was, says Webb, "the object of the English gov- 
ernment to discover and destroy all remains of the litera- 
ture of the Irish in order more fully to eradicate from 
their minds every trace of their ancient independence." 
The men whom the English government sent on their mis- 
sion of destruction and dispossession to Ireland in the 

i Kl. Bay. Akad., Abhandl., 1891, p. 366. 

76 



Transmitting Treasures of Ancient Learning 

sixteenth century were no more educated men than the 
men she sent in the nineteenth and sends in the twentieth. 
It is not likely that in days when not one Englishman 
in a hundred could read or write that these emissaries 
of barbarism would be able to discriminate between an 
Irish and a Latin manuscript. To them they were both 
Greek. Unlike "ye sinfulle jewelles" they were not car- 
ried away or transmuted, but blindly destroyed. Had the 
Irish manuscripts, the Hiberno-Latin and the Hiberno- 
Greek manuscripts, now peacefully reposing in Switzer- 
land and elsewhere, had the libraries of Bobbio, Rebais, 
Fleury and St. Gall, been in Ireland, to-day hardly 
a vestige of them would remain. Had Johannes Scotus 
Eriugena, the greatest thinker in the West or East from 
Augustine to Aquinas, written his books at home in 
Ireland, they would have been destroyed and we would 
never have known of his existence. We can measure the 
loss to civilization now; we could not have measured it 
then. The psalm-singing Englishman has been able to 
give the heathen Vandal lessons in vandalism. 

For these reasons the work of the people of Ireland in 
the medieval age cannot be judged by the standards in 
respect to number and quality of existing monuments as 
in other lands. In no other land has there been a foreign 
government established in power interested in the destruc- 
tion of the memorials and monuments of the national 
civilization. The Romans when they conquered Greece 
did not destroy Greek architecture or Greek literature. 
But the English in Ireland decided that the spoliation 
and abasement of the Irish nation was a necessary condi- 
tion of their own aggrandizement. We have to realize 
therefore that the literary monuments that have come 
down to us from medieval Ireland, noble and interesting 

77 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

as they are, form but a very small fraction of what existed 
even as late as the sixteenth century. What remains is 
merely what escaped destroyers bent on the destruction 
of everything. If for example it is remarked that Irish 
manuscripts in Latin of the ninth century are numerous, 
while Irish manuscripts in Latin of the tenth century are 
rare, it does not follow that there were not a large number 
of Irishmen writing in Latin in the tenth as well as in 
the ninth century. It only follows that of the ninth cen- 
tury manuscripts more escaped the destroyer than of the 
tenth century manuscripts. If it is remarked that despite 
the medieval Irish knowledge of Greek the documentary 
evidences of that knowledge should be more conspicuous 
on the Continent than in Ireland, it does not followthatthe 
Irish abroad were better Greek scholars than Irishmen 
in Ireland, it only follows that the Hiberno-Greek manu- 
scripts abroad escaped the destruction to which they would 
have been doomed in Ireland. If it is a matter for com- 
ment that the Anglo-Saxons, despite their continued bar- 
barism, produced an ecclesiastical historian like Bede, 
while the Irish, despite their superior and sustained cul- 
ture, did not, it does not follow that there were not Irish 
ecclesiastical historians. That there were not such ap- 
pears in the highest degree improbable. 1 We only know 
that whether one Irish Bede or more existed the proba- 
bilities are that his works would have been destroyed. 
The literary monuments that escaped the Danes in Ireland 
were later destroyed by the English in so far as they 
were able to discover them. We have historical narratives 
in Ireland belonging both to the seventh and eighth cen- 

i Adamnan (624-703) is said to have written an historia Hibernorum ab 
origine ad sua tempora, mentioned by "Ward, Vita Rumoldi, p. 218, Lovan, 
1662. There were numerous other kinds of histories. In the "Annals of 
Ulster" we read at the year 439, "Chronicon magnum scriptum est"; at 467, 
"sio in libro Cuanach inveni"; at 482, "ut Cuana; scripsit" ; at 507, "Secundum 
librum Mochod." 

78 






Transmitting Treasures of Ancient Learning 

turies. They are fragments representing a large historical 
literature that has perished. 1 

3. Irish Genealogy of Carolingian Schools 

We shall see as we proceed in what manner and by what 
methods the medieval Irish trustees of civilization trans- 
mitted to the newer races the treasure in their keeping. 
But already one of the paths of that transmission lies open 
before us. Speculation has been rife as to the source from 
which Charlemagne and his contemporaries drew their 
inspiration in the establishment of the cathedral and 
monastic schools of their time. The speculation has in- 
variably ended in a blind alley, for the average historian, 
knowing little of Ireland and her civilization, and seeking 
for his phenomena an ancestry in the easily accessible 
where no ancestry existed, has been content to construct 
a genealogy with its medieval generations dubious or 
missing. Yet the maternal relation of Ireland to the epis- 
copal schools and seminaries of the Carolingian era is 
plainly as authentic as her relation of maternity to the 
men who conducted them. Whether all these men were 
Irish or not does not affect that relation. They were al- 
most all Irish in any case, and such of them as were not, 
like Alcuin and Rhabanus Maur, were representatives of 
Irish learning. 

We know that in the Carolingian era Irish scholars 
swamped Gaul and Germany and Italy. For over the 
two preceding centuries they had been sounding in Euro- 
pean lands the evangel of a higher intellectual life. No 
thinker of the time could escape their influence and the 

1 "The books of saga, poetry and annals that have come down to our day, 
though so vastly more ancient and numerous than anything the rest of west- 
ern Europe has to show, are yet an almost inappreciable fragment of the 
literature that at one time existed in Ireland": (Hyde, Literary History of 
Ireland, 263). 

79 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

effects of their work, and whether the personages were 
monarchs like Charlemagne, who was their life-long ad- 
mirer, or were like Theodulph of Orleans, who was in 
constant conflict with them, or the monks of St. Gall, who 
associated with and were directed by them, or the bishops 
of France and Germany, who were incessantly investi- 
gating them in council, or the popes in Rome, who got all 
sorts of reports about them, to these Irishmen and to none 
other could they look as intellectual leaders and advisers. 
It was while the Irish Ferghil was bishop of Salzburg, 
defending against less informed theologians his theory 
of the rotundity of the earth and the existence of the 
Antipodes, that the Council of Bavaria in 774 issued its 
first pronouncement on the establishment of schools. It 
was while Theodulph of Orleans was smarting under the 
rapier-like thrusts of the Irishmen at the court of 
Charlemagne of whose culture he gave voice to an envy 
less unsophisticated than Aldhelm's, that he issued his 
capitularies for grammar schools where the teaching was 
to be almost as hospitable and gratuitous as in Ireland 
itself. It was while all these influences were in the air 
that Pope Eugenius II for the first time in history issued 
in 826 A. D. bulls enjoining throughout Gaul and the 
rest of Christendom schools of the kind that had then 
been in existence in Ireland for centuries. It was when 
Louis the Pious, harking back to a less enlightened 
tradition among Christian governors, showed a disposi- 
tion to disregard the counsel of the popes that the bishops 
of France, again for the first time on record, recalled and 
seconded the papal precepts on education and had them 
in turn confirmed by a later pope. It was in direct con- 
demnation of the "negligence and indolence" of his father, 
the Emperor Louis, that Lothaire, King of Italy, pupil 

80 



Transmitting Treasures of Ancient Learning 

of the Irish Clement, issued in 825 A. D. his important 
edict assigning Pavia, Turin, Cremona, Piacenza, Flor- 
ence and other places for central schools, some of them 
with Irish teachers like Dungal, to whom scholars from 
the surrounding districts, mentioned in detail, were to 
resort. Thus after centuries of unwearied effort Irish 
scholars who presided at the opening of the ninth century 
in Gaul, Germany and Italy, saw the flourishing of the 
seed which generations of Irishmen in those lands had 
been sowing before them. 

Yet it is at the Irish foundation of St. Gall that we 
find the first indubitable evidence of the actual education 
not only of youth intended for the priesthood or the 
cloister, but of the Irish fashion of educating lay youths 
as well. Of the ideal of lay or secular schools with lay 
students taught by lay teachers, such as existed in Ireland, 
we have to come almost to modern times to find an example 
in other lands. But St. Gall at any rate made the nearest 
approach to it at this early period and that approach 
we see in actual working during a period of renaissance 
when Irish teachers like Moengal and Marcus were the 
life and soul of the celebrated center of learning and 
cradle of German civilization. 

Thus the remarkable extant plan of the monastery of 
St. Gall, c. 820 A. D., which Dr. Ferdinand Keller un- 
earthed in 1844, 1 shows an inner school of the novices 
or oblati, i. e., the boys offered to God, and an outer 
school, providing for about 150 boarders, for young gen- 
tlemen intended for civil and military life. 2 At the time 

1 There is a facsimile and description of the plan in the Archaeological 
Journal, 1848, vol. 5. (London). 

2 Irish proficiency in the secular studies was well recognized on the Con- 
tinent. Thus Walafrid Strabo (d. 849) says that Erlebald, of noble birth and 
abbot of Reichenau (822-838) was first instructed at Reichenau by Heito and 
afterwards was sent with a companion to some learned Irish instructor for 
training in the secular branches of the sciences and arts. 

7 8l 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 



of its greatest activity both schools were presided over by 
the Irish scholar, Moengal. 

It is to be noted that in this ancient pictorial descrip- 
tion of the monastery of St. Gall, which was probably 
as near an approach to an Irish monastery as then existed 
on the Continent, the entire establishment resembles a 
town composed of isolated houses with streets running 
between them. The chief building was the basilica and 
on two sides of its semicircular atrium two Irish round 
towers lifted themselves into the air, with altars to the 
archangels Michael and Gabriel, and conical roofs and 
ornamental finials. In the basilica itself altars dedicated 
to St. Columbanus and St. Benedict were placed side by 
side, and a digest of the rules of both was observed by 
the coenobites. The novices' school is shown as a replica 
of the monastery, complete in all parts, near the church 
and the infirmary of the monks, while the secular school 
was separated from the cloisters and was near the street 
and the guest hall. Close to the church were the library 
and scriptorium, the calefactory with dormitory over 
abbot's house, and refectory. 

4. Organizing the City and Christian Society 

But, as has been observed, the Irish monastery was a 
city in itself, often with a population of many thousands, 
not merely cultivating all the studies, but practising all 
the arts and industries. Here at St. Gall we find provision 
for all these things. There are kitchen, doctor's house, 
house for bloodletting, bakehouse, brewhouse, mills and 
factories with accommodation for all the mechanical arts. 
Then there are the outer departments with workshops, 
threshing floor, kiln, stables, cowsheds, goatsheds, pigsties, 
sheepfold, servants' and workmen's sleeping quarters, 

82 



Transmitting Treasures of Ancient Learning 

gardener's house, hen and duck house, poultrykeeper's 
house, baths and cemetery. There is also an immense 
garden with all sorts of medicinal herbs, and incidentally 
we learn from a Latin poem in the library the name of 
the Irishman who laid the gardens out. So the monastery 
was not merely a school, library and scriptorium, but a 
world of industry, a university in the large sense of to-day, 
a living metropolis, teaching the nation in which it was 
set the art of civic life and work. 

Indeed Wattenbach assigns to the medieval Irish the 
leading place in the organization of Christian society, 
declaring them to have first supplied the defect in the 
organization of society which arose from the development 
of cities, for until their time monasteries had been founded 
only in the solitude of the country, excepting such as 
were attached to episcopal seats. 1 Wattenbach found the 
inspiration for this observation in the Irish foundations 
which Marianus Scotus and his countrymen established 
in Germany in the middle of the eleventh century. Thus 
the merchants from Ratisbon who founded Vienna knew 
no rest till a colony of Irish monks, whom Ratisbon citi- 
zens had helped in the building of their first monastery, 
had come and settled among them. But it is to be noted 
as part of the Irish contribution to modern civilization 
that just as at an earlier period Irishmen had founded 
cities like St. Gall by building on sites in the solitude, 
so at a later period they supplied the organizing element 
in cities in the origin of which they had at first no part. 

1 See the Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Old Series, VII, 297. 



83 



CHAPTER VIII 

WESTERN CIVILIZATION'S BASE OF SUPPLY 

I. Military Strength of Medieval Ireland. 2. Land of Enormous 
Wealth. 3. Celtic, Greek, and Roman Europe. 4. Ireland's Abun- 
dance of Gold. 5. Exodus of Irish Scholars. 6. Parallel Promulga- 
tion of Civilization and Christianity. 

i. Military Strength of Medieval Ireland 

BEHIND the men engaged in the great work of 
rehabilitation abroad lay as base of supply 'an 
Ireland very different from the Ireland familiar 
to us in recent times. Medieval Ireland was not only 
the freest and most enlightened country on earth, but 
also the richest and almost the most compact and power- 
ful. It is inconceivable that the men of Ireland could 
have done the things they did unless she was all these 
things. But we do not need to argue back from the work 
of Irish scholars and missionaries abroad. We have all 
the data necessary to a complete presentment of Ireland 
itself and the deeds performed by her. When the first 
Dane appeared on her coasts at the close of the eighth 
century Ireland could look back on an authentic history 
of at least a thousand years during which no foreigner 
had dared to violate her by attempted occupation. 
Dating from that very century there is still, as has been 
noted, extant a history in the old Irish tongue which 
speaks of the last invasion of Ireland by the Gaels them- 
selves and of the establishment of the kingdom in the time 
of Alexander the Great. 1 From that time forward the 
Gaels of Ireland had never known any rule but Irish rule, 
administered through all the clans, under a single royal 

1 See p. 29 supra. 

84 



Western Civilization's Base of Supply- 
dynasty and government, called in history the Milesian, 
that still endured from the time when the last migration 
of the Gaels entered the island. 

The prolonged period of peace and prosperity did not 
enervate the Irish people. In 1014 A. D. at Clontarf 
they crushed the Danes who had conquered both France 
and England. Four years later at Carham the Irish 
forces inhabiting Scotland inflicted on the English a 
defeat more decisive than Bannockburn. Repeatedly the 
Irish had appeared in the way of conquering the entire 
British Isles. As the Roman forces in the fifth century with- 
drew from Britain Irish armies followed them to the foot 
of the Alps, Irish fleets held the western seas, and what 
is now England was almost entirely Irish ground. But 
Christianity came to Ireland in the very midst of these 
events and from that time forth no raiding expedition 
went forth from the island. Again, following the battle 
of Carham in 101 8 A. D., the northern counties of England 
became ground so debatable that they were not included 
in the Domesday Book of the Conqueror. Had the Franks 
from Normandy and the contiguous French provinces 
not appeared in 1066 A. D. at Hastings to give the coup 
de grace to the demoralized English the chances are that 
the finishing blow would have been delivered by the Irish 
of the north, and southern Britain, first British, then 
Roman, Saxon, and Danish, might like Wales and Scot- 
land have become enduringly Irish. 

The Norman French and the Flemings who began to 
emigrate to Ireland 1 about a century after their conquest 
of England came in contact with a people at least quite 
the equal in culture and manners of any on the Continent 

1 This French entry into Ireland is often spoken of as an "English" in- 
vasion and as signalizing the beginning of "English rule" in Ireland. The 
absurdity of this will be apparent. 

85 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

and in whom an immemorial pride of family and birth 
and an unbroken sense of freedom had made obeisance 
to any conqueror inconceivable. 1 The newcomers speedily 
succumbed to Irish civilization and, dropping their 
French speech, dress and customs, sought matrimonial 
alliances with Irish families of equal station and became, 
in the old phrase, more Irish than the Irish themselves. 

Very different had been the behavior of these French- 
men in England. The Anglo-Saxon had not taken to 
civilization kindly. The vices, the brutalities, the indo- 
lences and sensualities of an intractable barbarism 
weighed him down, and despite six centuries of wander- 
ing among the habitations of Roman civilization, and 
despite almost five centuries of Christianity, the English- 
man still remained the semi-savage, using his intervals of 
liberty from one oppression or another to alternate ex- 
cesses of swinish self-indulgence with suicidal orgies of 
internecine strife. 2 To his French conqueror the medieval 
Englishman was simply an evil-smelling boor and hind, 
fit only for low and menial tasks; and to such tasks he 
was henceforth condemned. 3 Thus the Anglo-Saxon, 
trodden into resistless clay by the Dane, was trodden 

i Nothing more surprized these French and Flemish settlers from Britain, 
accustomed as they were to the cringing servility of the English produced by 
long slavery and what contemporary Norman French writers call innate Sax- 
on dulness, than the natural boldness and readiness of the ordinary Irish in 
speaking even in the presence of their princes and nobles. (Giraldus Cam- 
brensis, "Description of Wales," b. i., C. 15; but the remarks apply to the Irish 
in a greater degree.) 

2 Green is more candid in his correspondence than in his history. Thus in 
writing to Freeman about his projected history to the Norman conquest, he 
remarks: "As I read it, the story isn't a pretty one, and the people are not 
pretty people to write about." Stubbs had told him that people would not 
read anything in English history before 1066. He refused to bow to this 
doom and managed to throw over the facts and absence of facts a veil of 
romance. (Letters of John Richard Green, 478.) 

3 "Who dare compare the English, the most degraded of all the races under 
Heaven, with the Welsh?" writes Giraldus Cambrensis (1147-1222). "In their 
own country they are serfs, the veriest slaves of the Normans. In ours (Wales) 
whom else have we for our shepherds, herdsmen, cobblers, skinners, cleaners 
of our dog-kennels, aye, even of our privies, but Englishmen?" (Opera, ed. 
by J. S. Brewer, vol. Ill, p. 27.) 

86 



Western Civilizati on's Base of Supply 

down into a deeper well of degradation by the Frank, by 
whom he was classed with the cattle in the field and to 
whom he remained as much a stranger. We can judge 
in no clearer way of the military prowess of the Irish and 
of the strength and brilliancy of their civilization than 
by their contrasted effect on the all-conquering Frank from 
Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine, whose name had be- 
come a terror in England, Sicily and in the East. 

2. Land of Enormous Wealth 
Ireland, however, was a country not only militarily 
powerful and highly cultured, but also a country of enor- 
mous wealth. This is evidenced, among other things, by 
her large population of English slaves. The English 
slave, as will later be shown, was as familiar a figure to 
the medieval Irishman as the negro slave to the southern 
planter in the United States in the early half of the last 
century. These English slaves were carried in cargoes to 
Ireland from English ports much as the negro slave was 
carried from Africa to America at a later epoch. Irish 
families of station had their Anglo-Saxon "fudirs," male 
and female, just as the family of the southern planter 
each had its "nigger." Many Irish families had large 
numbers of these English slaves, and herds of them were 
often included in the tributes, donations and stipends that 
passed between one Irish family of rank and another. 
These English slaves were not taken in war, as some his- 
torians try to make out, the tolerance which the medieval 
Irishman showed to the Englishman, and the almost sav- 
age worship which the Englishman manifested towards 
the Irishman, rendering hostilities almost impossible. 1 

i During the entire period before the French conquest and after the arrival 
the ^ntrT Y ° ne ?? f h ° stilit y is recorded as having been perpetrated by 
the English against Ireland, namely, the raid made by the order of Ecgfrith, 

there'aiorded to* A^, '£"1 ^^ lt W ° Uld Seem ' a ^ ainst the Protection 
there afforded to Aldfnd, his half-brother and rival, who succeeded him 

87 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 



The slaves were purchased in England by dealers from 
the degraded fathers and mothers and other more power- 
ful relatives of the unfortunates. 1 

Much of Ireland's wealth came to her in foreign com- 
merce, carried on from the beginning with her kindred 
in Gaul. That wealth was well recognized abroad. We 
find, among others, Walafrid Strabo writing in the ninth 
century of "wealthy Hibernia." 2 Doncadh, or Donatus, of 
Fiesole, goes very much further and gives in Latin 
hexameters a glowing description in the same century 
of Ireland's exhaustless riches. 3 In the tenth century she 
remained "that very wealthy country in which there are 
twelve cities and wide bishoprics and a king and that has 
its own language and Latin letters." 4 

The impression has long prevailed that Ireland had 
from the beginning been widely removed from the main 
stream of European life and that her fate had been to 
move around in a backwater where only the fainter wash 
of the larger currents reached, neither giving nor re- 
ceiving much from Europe. Her position in the extreme 
West has nurtured this view, but the enterprise of her sons, 
surpassing the energy of every other nation in the West, 
overbore in antiquity as in the medieval era the obstacles 
of nature. 

i See Appendix A. 

2 In his life of Blaithmac, monk of Iona: Blaithmac, genuit quem dives 
Hibernia mundo (Poetae Lat. A. C, II, 297). 

3 Migne and Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini reproduce the poem; and transla- 
tions in Irish and English are given in Flannery, "For the Tongue of the 
Gael." See also Ossianic Society, V. p. 75. 

4 Chronicle of Ademar, Monk of Angouleme. 



88 



Western Civilization's Base of Supply 

3. Celtic, Greek and Roman Europe 

The truth is that Celt, Roman and Greek lived side by 
side from beyond the dawn of history, 1 and no foreign 
element drove a wedge between them till the Saxon and 
Anglian tribes invaded Britain in the fifth century sepa- 
rating the Celts of Ireland from their continental brethren. 
The Irish were thus always active in the interchange of 
knowledge and trade, keeping close to the heart of the 
developing civilization of the West, whether Cartha- 
ginian, Celt, Greek or Roman was in the ascendant. 2 

Europe was Gaulish, or Celtic, before it was Roman, 
and when history, as revealed by what are called classical 
writers, dawned, a single civilization and a single speech, 
shading off into various dialects, prevailed from the west 
coast of Ireland almost to the Black Sea. 3 Thus Celtic, 

1 Modern research seems to have shown that the master race of Greece, 
the Achaians, whose deathless glories are enshrined in the poems of Homer, 
were a fairhaired race of Celtic invaders, whom the discovery of iron made 
irresistible, and who, descending into the Peloponnesus from the head of the 
Adriatic, conquered the aboriginal Pelagians or Greeks proper, and, having 
made of them helots, adopted the language of the subject race, as appears 
to be the habit of invading conquerors, when they do not bring their wives 
with them. (Cf. Ridgeway, "Early Age of Greece.") In like manner the Patri- 
cians of Rome appear to have been a Celtic tribe of Umbro-Sabellians, who 
descended from the Alps into Central Italy, conquered the aboriginal Latins 
or Ligurians, later known to history as the Plebeians, and who then adopted 
the tongue of the subject people in place of the Celtic dialect they had 
brought with them (see Ridgeway, "Who Were the Romans 1 ?" British Acad., 
Proa, 1907-8.) 

2 Thus in 1831, two hundred Roman coins were found in Ireland near the 
Giants' Causeway, dating from 70 A. D. to 160 A. D. Bodies have been found 
near Bray Head, each with a copper coin of Trajan or Hadrian on his breast. 
Ptolemy gives a more accurate picture of Hibernia than of Britannia, enumer- 
ating several Irish cities, three being seaports, seven inland. Tacitus de- 
scribes the ports of Ireland as better known to merchants and traders than 
those of Britain. Juvenal's Satires attest that Irish woolen goods were sold 
and worn in Rome. 

3 We are dependent on Irish literature for our knowledge of ancient 
Europe and its Celtic world, for Ireland, outside of Greece and Rome, is the 
only country that has preserved a record of its life during the period of anti- 
quity. In the Tain, the chief Irish epic, we find depicted an Irish world con- 
temporaneous with the Rome of Sulla and Caesar. Thus the Irish champions 
have much in common with the warriors of Gaul described by the Greek 
traveler, Posidonius, while their equipment and armor correspond with the 
La Tene types on the Continent. The Irish heroes, for example, still fight in 
chariots, war-dogs are employed, whilst the heads of the slain are carried 
off in triumph and slung round the necks of the horses. (See Ridgeway, First 
Shaping of the Cuchulain Saga, Proa, Brit. Acad., 1905-6.) 

89 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

the mother of the Irish language, was sister to Latin and 
Greek, and the Celtic dialects spoken in Gaul appear to 
have shaded so gradually into the Italic or Latin lan- 
guages spoken in the South that there hardly seems to 
have been a frontier line between them. 1 

The continued intercourse of the Irish with their 
Gaulish kindred soon filled Ireland with the refinements 
of a luxurious civilization. "From various sources we 
learn," says Gilbert, "that in those ancient times the native 
dress was costly and picturesque and the habits and modes 
of living of the chiefs splendid and oriental. The high-born 
and wealthy wore tunics of fine linen of immense width, 
girdled with gold, and with flowing sleeves after the east- 
ern fashion. The fringed cloak, or cuchula, with a hood, 
after the Arab mode, was clasped on the shoulders with 
a golden brooch. Golden circlets of beautiful and classic 
form, confined their long, flowing hair, crowned with 
which the chiefs sat at the banquet, or went to war. San- 
dals upon the feet, and bracelet and signet rings, of rich 
and curious workmanship, completed the costume. The 
ladies wore the silken robes and flowing veils of Persia, 
or rolls of linen wound round the head like the Egyptian 
Isis, the hair curiously plaited down the back and fastened 
with gold and silver bodkins, while the neck and arms 
were profusely covered with jewels." 

Thus the relics of a civilization 3,000 years old may 

1 The names of the chiefs of Gaul who fought with Caesar are compre- 
hensible in Irish: For example: Vercingetorix, Irish — Fear cinn gacha toruish, 
"the man at the head of every expedition;" Dumnorix, Irish — domadh an torus : 
"second person of the expedition;" Orgetorix, Irish — orra, "chief," gacha, "ol 
every," torus, "expedition;" Eporedorix, Irish — ab urra torus, "sire and chiei 
of the expedition;" Andecumborius, Irish — an te cum bothar, "ambassador," 
"man for the road;" Bellovesus, Irish — bealach fiosach, "man acquainted with 
the highways;" and so on. The case is the same with the names of places: 
Garonne, Irish — garbh amhan, "rough river;"" Alps, Irish — ailp, "mountain;' 
Sequana, Irish — seach amhan, "dividing river." The names are written dowr 
by Caesar as they sounded to Roman ears. (See Holder, Alt-Celtischei 
Sprachschatz, Leipzig, 1896; "Irish Names in Caesar," Catholic World, Ne-vs 
York, 1882.) 

90 



Western Civilization's Base of Supply 

be still gazed upon by modern eyes in the unrivaled 
antiquarian collection of the Royal Irish Academy at 
Dublin. The circlets, lunulas, fibulas, torques, gorgets, 
tiaras, diadems, necklaces, bracelets, rings, there to be 
seen, nearly all of solid gold, worn by the ancient Irish, 
are not only costly in value, but often so singularly beauti- 
ful in the working out of minute artistic details, that 
modern art is not merely unable to imitate them, but is 
even unable to comprehend how the ancient workers in 
metals could accomplish works of such delicate, almost 
microscopic, minuteness of finish. This single Irish col- 
lection contains some five hundred ornaments of gold, a 
scanty remnant, miraculously recovered, of what has been 
lost, carried out of the country, and melted down: their 
weight is five hundred and seventy ounces, as compared 
with a weight of twenty ounces — much of it considered 
to be originally Irish also — in the British Museum from 
all England, Scotland and Wales. 

4. Ireland's Abundance of Gold 

These remarkable jewels, detritus rescued from great 
destructions, lend an air of perfect reality to the numerous 
passages in ancient Irish literature in which the various 
personages are described as wearing ornaments of gold 
and other precious materials. The Book of Ballymote, 
for example, contains a striking and almost contemporary 
description of Cormac, son of Airt, high monarch of 
Ireland (d. 266 A. D.), presiding over the parliament at 
Tara, in which gold ornaments figure: "Flowing and 
slightly curling was his golden hair, a red buckler with 
stars and animals of gold and fastenings of silver upon 
him, a crimson cloak in wide descending folds around 
him, fastened at his neck with precious stones, a neck 

91 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

torque of gold around his neck, a white shirt with a full 
collar and intertwined with red gold thread upon him; 
a girdle of gold, inlaid with precious stones, was around 
him ; two wonderful shoes of gold with golden loops upon 
his feet; two spears with golden sockets in his hands, 
with many rivets of red bronze, and he was himself, 
besides, symmetrical and beautiful of form, without blem- 
ish or reproach." The passage is but typical of many in 
the Irish tales relating to habiliments, vestiture, weapons, 
and armor, which, in the case of the higher classes, were 
costly and splendid. 

Ireland's former wealth in gold was nothing short of 
extraordinary. "For hundreds of years Ireland was an 
enormously rich country, supplying not only herself but 
also Britain and part of the Atlantic seaboard with gold. 
Such natural wealth must have produced a marked effect 
on the relations and culture of the Irish." 1 Giraldus 
Cambrensis testifies to the abundance of gold in Ireland. 
Montelius remarks that "Ireland's wealth of gold in the 
Bronze Age is amazing." "No other country possesses 
so much manufactured gold belonging to early and 
medieval times," says E. A. Smith. 2 "Ireland's original 
wealth of gold must have been so vast as scarcely to be 
credited," says an authority already quoted. 3 It has been 
repeatedly remarked that in the literature of no other 
country are there as many references to gold, as an ordi- 
nary possession, as in Irish literature. This Irish wealth 
of gold is one of the unsolved mysteries of Irish history. 
The mere extant remains exceed the known medieval 
quantity of gold of any country, save perhaps equatorial 
Colombia alone. 

i Reid, Archeology, En. Brit. 11th ed. 

2 Of the Royal College of Mines (London). 

s Reid, loo. cit. 

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Western Civilization's Base of Supply 

In 793 the Danes made their first descent on the English 
coast. Lindisfarne suffered severely at their hands as 
well as south Wales. They also visited France. But 
thereafter for a generation they forgot both France and 
England and for thirty years confined their attention to 
the spoliation of Ireland. In that they showed good 
judgment, for, tho Ireland was a more powerful foe than 
other countries and was eventually destined to down them, 
it was also the citadel of Christian civilization and was 
very much richer than both France and England. 1 A 
national development, free from foreign intrusion, going 
back to the point almost contemporary with the founding 
of Rome, had made her the treasure-house of the West. 
Her accumulation of precious metals, heaped up from 
a vast antiquity, had been poured into innumerable shrines 
on islands and in valleys, and these the martial cupidity 
and cunning of the Danes, by ceaseless surprize attacks 
and thieving raids, were concentrated on rifling. The 
wealth borne from Ireland in those distant times is still 
attested to by the quantity of Irish metal work in Scan- 
dinavian lands. What they could not steal, what they 
were unable to understand or appraise these Danes de- 
stroyed, and against nothing did they evince a greater 
destructive vandalism than against Irish books, to which, 
in common with the English, they ascribed superstitious 
powers. But after each considerable attack — and the at- 
tacks continued till the Battle of Clontarf, 1014 — Ireland 
shook herself together again and repaired the damage. 
She did not succumb to Danish power, as eventually En- 

1 In 1285, more than a hundred years after the so-called Norman "con- 
quest" of Ireland we find Ireland described as rich and powerful, and the 
English in comparison as poor; Item, Hibernenses sunt divites, potentes, et 
Anglici pauperes, quod vix illi Anglici qui potuerunt in sexdecim .... eisdem 
in equitatura contra Hibernenses; modo non habent quod manducent. (Cal- 
endar of Documents, Ireland, ed. Sweetman, iii., p. 15; Mrs. Green, "The Mak- 
ing of Ireland and Its Undoing," p. 13.) 

93 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

gland and part of France succumbed, but finally crushed 
it utterly so that Irish sovereignty was not irremediably 
impaired. 

These things are given in order that we may add to our 
conception of the land from which the Irish builders 
of European civilization went. Its wealth and its strength, 
as well as its culture, were assets in their work. A knowl- 
edge of these facts helps us to a clearer analysis of their 
motives. Not poverty or strife or hope of betterment car- 
ried them to other lands. The occasions and purposes of 
their exiles and journeys were altogether different. 

5. Exodus of Irish Scholars 

That Ireland should have been the .retreat and nursery 
of learning and the center of intellectual activity while 
the rest of Europe was the prey of barbarism would ap- 
pear to have been distinction enough. Little reproach 
could have been cast upon her had she been content to 
enjoy the fruits of her own civilization, sharing those 
fruits the while with such foreign visitors as sought them 
on Irish soil. But the fact remains that she was not so 
content. 

At an early period, as one French writer puts it, 1 Irish 
sanctity and culture became animated by an ardent spirit 
of proselytism and missionary zeal. The converts of one 
generation became the apostles of another. Fervent monks 
longed with a great longing to carry beyond the sea their 
methods of asceticism. Their voluntary exile appeared 
to them in the light of a supreme immolation sovereignly 
fitted to perfect the work of renunciation which they had 
undertaken. They left the land of their birth, radiant 
with tender associations, blooming like a garden with the 

1 Gougaud, Les Chretient6s Celtiques, p. 135. 

94 



Western Civilization's Base of Supply 



cultivation of the arts and sciences, to become "monks 
and exiles for the sake of Christ," "for the love of God," 
"for the name of the Lord," "for the love of the name 
of Christ," "for the benefit of their souls," "for the gaining 
of the heavenly land," as "pilgrims for the kingdom of 
God" — such are the formulae which the biographers of 
these consecrated pilgrims preferably employ. Pro 
Christo peregrinari volens enavigavit — "Desiring to go 
abroad for Christ he sailed away" are the words of Adam- 
nan concerning Columcille. "My country," said Mochona, 
one of Columcille's disciples, "is where I can gather the 
largest harvest for Christ." The three Irishmen who after 
tossing on the seas for days arrived at the English coast 
and were received by King Alfred had left Ireland, the 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us, "because for the love of 
God they would be on pilgrimage they recked not where." 
They called themselves, and were called by others, 
"peregrini," that is to say, pilgrims, strangers, voluntary 
exiles. They interdicted themselves for a prolonged 
period — often for their whole life — from returning to 
their own land. The hagiographers, for this reason, often 
compare them to Abraham. It seemed as if they had all 
heard the voice which said to the Patriarch: "Go forth 
out of thy country and from thy kindred." 1 

To continental people there was something baffling in 
the sustained energy of these medieval Irishmen. Writ- 
ers of the time make note of the impression of wonder 
produced by the Irish passion for traveling and preach- 
ing. How strongly the Alemanni of the ninth century, 
who never left their own country, were imprest, asZimmer 
notes, by this trait of the Irish, is perceived in the remark 

i Compare on this subject the reasoning from insufficient evidence of John 
Henry Newman, Hist. Sketches, Vol. III. Yet Newman compares very favor- 
ably with some later English Catholic writers, who have had opportunities 
of knowing better. 

95 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

of Walafrid Strabo (d. 849) when in allusion to it he 
says : "The habit of traveling to distant lands has become 
a second nature to this people." 1 Men of education in 
Britain likewise make note of it. Thus we have the 
remark of Alcuin that "it has long since been a custom 
for very learned teachers to come from Ireland to Britain, 
Gaul and Italy." 2 The frequent testimony of Alcuin to 
the state of learning in Ireland is valuable because of his 
close association with Irishmen. 

To leave home and kindred for the inaccessible crag, 
the high mountain, the bare desert, the ocean-swept isle, 
seemed to these ascetic Irishmen the literal following in 
the footsteps of the Lord. To seek out remote tribes, and 
work among them, preaching, teaching, spending them- 
selves in behalf of them, building them up into Christian 
nations, was again work such as Christ commanded and 
his disciples performed. "Going, teach all nations !" was an 
admonition they ardently took to heart and to which many 
of them consecrated their lives. And they communicated 
this spirit to their disciples and thus set going a moral 
energy that carried Europe forward for centuries and 
made Christianity synonymous with civilization. 

Ireland succeeded in retaining the heroic spirit of its 
pagan youth and accommodating it to its later Christian 
ideals. The fierce courage of a Cuchulain was changed 
into the spiritual heroism of a Columcille. The superter- 
restrial zeal of the missionary and monk is foreshadowed 
in the unyielding resolution of the pagan warrior. The 
valor of death in the midst of labors of so many devoted 

1 Nuper quoque de natione Scottorum, consuetudo peregrinandi jam paene 
in naturam conversa est. Vita S. Galli, Mon. Germ. Hist., Script. Rer. Germ. 
IV, 336. See also his poem Ad Probum Presbyterum, Poetae Lat. Car., II, 
394. Osbern of Canterbury has something similar to say: quod aliis bona 
voluntas in consuetudinem, hoc illis (sc. Hibernis) consuetudo uertet in 
naturam (Stubb's Dunstan, p. 74). 

2 Mon. Ger. Hist. Epp., IV, 437. 

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Western Civilization's Base of Supply 

Irishmen found its secular parallel in the intrepidity of 
the death-hour of Cuchulain: "Beir leat me d'ionnsaigid 
na carraige cloice ud tael ar do comair gurab ann do- 
geubad bas agus deirig m'airm orm, agus an fead do-cifid 
fir Eireann mar sin me, ni leigfi an eagla doib teact im 
ionnsaigid dom diceannad." "Carry me and stand me 
against yonder rock, and put my weapons in my hands, 
and when the men of Erie shall see me in such guise sheer 
fear will deter them from approaching to behead me." 

Somewhat later than the cycle to which Cuchulain and 
his fellow champions belonged there was an order of 
chivalry in ancient Ireland called the Fianna or Fenians, 
whose heroic accomplishments are sung by Oisin, or 
Ossian. Than the Fianna, whose chief was Fionn, there 
were no stronger, straighter, bolder, nobler men in all 
Eire. Each member had to vow never to refuse hospi- 
tality, never to turn his back in battle, never to insult 
a woman, nor to accept a dowry with his wife. He had 
to be able to ward of! with his shield the spears of his 
adversaries hurling them simultaneously, to be able to 
fly through forests without loosing his braided locks, or 
breaking a branch, to jump over a branch as high as his 
forehead and stoop under one as low as his heel while 
running at full speed, and to pluck a thorn from his foot 
while so doing. 

All this spirit of high and vehement endeavor, mir- 
rored in the wonderful poems of Oisin, was carried over 
from pagan into Christian Ireland. It animated the 
eremite monks who looked for solitude in the center of 
the ocean, in the heart of desert wastes, on the high moun- 
tain, or in the cold of arctic islands, and it animated the 
missionaries and schoolmen. They looked on life as a 
warfare, and themselves as soldiers, trained and armed for 
s 97 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 



spiritual combat, and they responded to the spiritual call 
of religion, of learning and of liberty, as they had before 
answered to the martial call of bard and king. They were 
called ascetics, or athletes, which is the very meaning of 
the Greek word, and they loved to "make a record," and 
records they made in abundance, as we shall see as we 
proceed. 

Behind the going from Ireland of some of these pas- 
sionate pilgrims often lay a romance of high passion such 
as is depicted in Irish literature with wonderful purity, 
tenderness and charm. There is for example the ninth 
century tale of "Liadain and Curithir," which, by its 
pathos and rare knowledge of the human heart, recalls 
the other great love stories of the world's literature. It 
tells of the love of a poetess who has taken the veil for a 
young poet from whom her vows separate her forever. 
Thus the plot is a conflict between love and religion. The 
lovers seek the direction of one of the saints who gives 
them the choice between seeing each other without speak- 
ing or speaking without seeing. 

"Talking for us," says the poet. "We have been look- 
ing at each other all our lives." So they converse, while 
one is enclosed in a cell and the other wanders around it. 
Passionate words of love and longing and regret are ex- 
changed: 

"Beloved is the dear voice that I hear 
I dare not welcome it. 
'Tis this the voice does to me, 
It will not let me sleep." 

At length the poet is banished by the saint and, re- 
nouncing love, takes up the pilgrim's staff. The hapless 
Liadain follows, seeking him and wailing: 

"Joyless 
The bargain I have made: 
98 



Western Civilization's Base of Supply 



The heart of him I love I wrung. 

I am Liadain 

Who loved Curithir. 

It is true as they say. 

. . . ,The music of the forest 

Would sing to me when with Curithir, 

Together with the voice of the purple sea." 

But he crosses the sea and Liadain returns to die on 
the flagstone on which he had been wont to pray. "Her 
soul went to Heaven, and that flagstone was put over her 
face upon her tomb." 

6. Parallel Promulgation of Civilization and 
Christianity 

We know the names of a great many of these missionary 
Irishmen, but thousands perished in their work unknown 
to fame, for their numbers were great. "They overflowed 
the Continent with their successive migrations" remarks 
St. Bernard, 1 who, though a poor authority on Ireland, 
could speak with knowledge of what passed on the Con- 
tinent. The dangers that beset them were manifold. Eu- 
rope was then in the remaking. 

Famine, invasion, earthquake, pestilence, floods, and 
civil war had almost blotted out the landmarks of the 
ancient world. From the cities, which are the seats of 
civilizations, the remnants of ancient learning had sought 
refuge in the caves and woods. But even there the sav- 
agery and rapacity of successive invaders sought them out 
to burn and demolish. In a period when men thought 
mainly of rapine and murder and the vilest passions were 
aroused in sustained racial conflict, these spiritual Irish- 
men intervened between the warring elements with their 
prophetic evangel of peace, good will, love of kind, self 
sacrifice, asceticism, and renunciation of all unnecessary 

iVita Malach. 

99 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

material things in a laborious ascent to the higher spiritual 
and intellectual life. For something over five hundred 
years, from the sixth to the twelfth century, the Irish mis- 
sion continued. It was a work of singular fruitfulness. 
There has perhaps been nothing like it in the world be- 
yond those other two great apostolates by which civiliza- 
tion on the one hand and Christianity on the other were 
introduced into the minds and souls of men. It was the 
singular merit and fortune of the Irish mission that it was 
at once an apostolate of Christianity and an apostolate of 
civilization. 

Strange parallels will indeed be noted by those who 
care to compare the methods by which the work of the 
Irish mission was accomplished and the results that sprang 
from it, with the methods and results by which Chris- 
tianity was first promulgated and consolidated and by 
which the condition of civilization was gradually superin- 
duced upon the western world. The growth of civilization 
was slow and arduous. Homer may have been its first 
visible apostle, but unnumbered ages and a legion of 
lesser Homers were necessary before Homer himself was 
possible. 

Measuring the growth of civilization from Homer we 
note that knowledge was dispensed and promoted through 
the lands bordering the Mediterranean by the precise mis- 
sionary and colonizing methods employed by its Irish 
exponents at a later epoch. But the Irish missionary had 
a twofold character which the Greek had not. We have 
to add the Christian confessor to the Athenian sophist 
before we have a Columbanus, or an Eriugena. In them 
Christianity was the inspiration and in large part the 
medium by which they communicated their culture ; and 
as in the one case their work followed the natural methods 

ioo 



Western Civilization's Base of Supply 

of the old pagan teachers, so in the other they consciously 
modeled their apostolate on the pattern provided by the 
early Christian teachers. When Christianity came into 
the world the soil had already been prepared to receive 
it and from Peter and Paul to Constantine the grafting 
of the revealed doctrine upon the civilization of the 
Roman world was a comparatively brief process. Then 
Christianity and civilization went down in common ruin 
and it was left to a new race of men, children of the 
farthest western isle, to renew and restore both. The two 
had traveled from East to West by different routes and 
at different times. They journeyed back from West to 
East not separately, but entwined in an inseparable union. 
No jeweler's product resulting from the fusing of precious 
metals, for which Ireland was then famous, could com- 
pare with this masterwork of spiritual smithing repre- 
sented by the union through the force of the active Irish 
intellect of Christianity with the ancient learning. The 
process of developing that union went on till it appeared 
to reach its full expansion in the thirteenth century, but 
the ideal of Christian civilization first became a reality 
on Irish soil and it was out of that realized ideal that the 
vast organization of Christendom grew. 



IOI 



CHAPTER IX 

THE IRISH KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND 

I. Two-fold Invasion and Conquest. 2. Ireland, of the Sixth Century. 
3. Ancient Pagan and Medieval Christian Ireland. 4. The Military 

: of Sc.t'ani. 

i. Twofold Ixyasiox axd Conquest 

THE conquest which the invading Gael had set on 
foot in Ireland in the sixth century B. C. and 
which he had sealed with the establishment of the 
Gaelic monarchy over the island in the third century B. 
C. had already thrown its powerful tides over the western 
coasts and islands of what is now called Scotland when 
the curtain lifted over the northern scene and authentic 
history began. The successive steps by which the Celts 
from the Continent established their authority over what 
later came to be called the five kingdoms, or provinces, of 
Ireland are veiled by the uncertainty and conjecture 
that precede our era. But the processes by which the men 
of Ireland carried that authority northward over the sea 
and added to the five kingdoms the Irish kingdom of 
Scotland fall well within the historic period and can be 
followed by us with tolerable clearness. 

This later Irish conquest was not merely military and 
national. Civilization has moved from the beginning by 
devious paths and these first tides of conquest that re- 
ceived their immediate impulse from Tara and Dalriada 
carried with them an accompanying impulse from Athens, 

; usalem and Rome. The power of Roman arms that 
had enveloped first the Celts of Cisalpine Gaul, then 
Gaul itself and then Britain, stopped short at the Irish 

102 



The Irish Kingdom of Scotland 



Sea, but that sea presented no insuperable obstacle to the 
diffusion of Roman learning. That diffusion was made 
more easy by the settlement of Irish colonies within the 
nominal confines of the Roman Empire itself. What 
is now Wales was, as will later be shown, an Irish colony 
during the great part of the period of the Roman occu- 
pation of Britain. An exiled Irish prince, presumably 
with a retinue, sojourned at the camp of Agricola in 
Britain. 1 Irish legions fought side by side with Roman 
legions in Gaul and Germany. Thus numerous channels 
of intercourse were opened up between Ireland and the 
empire long before the official mission of Patrick and his 
colleagues. 

To the distinctive civilization which Ireland therefore 
had developed within herself as the most clearly pat- 
terned and defined entity within that empire of the Celts 
whose limits were deeply merged in an incessant ebb and 
flow with the empires that followed each other on the 
Mediterranean coasts, Ireland was able to add to her store 
from the indescribable wealth of the Greco-Roman mind 
almost in the very hour of its ultimate perfection. To 
that store she added incessantly till with the entire Chris- 
tianization of the island Ireland became a partaker in the 
full illumination that produced a Constantine and a 
Boethius, an Augustine and a Chrysostom. 

No slight interest therefore attaches to the twofold in- 
vasion and conquest which brought the northern half of 
Britain simultaneously within the empire of the Gael 
and the empire of Greco-Roman civilization. In its 
way it was an extension of that process of envelopment 
by which Rome had brought most of the known world 

i "Agricola, expulsum seditione domestica, tmum ex regulis gentis, ex- 
ceperat, ac specie amicitae in occasionem retenebat." (Tacitus, Life of Agric- 
ola.) 

IO3 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

— 

within the orbit of its influence. It was an emanation 
from an Ireland that had succeeded Italy as the home of 
the liberal arts and that alone enjoyed the homogeneity 
and repose necessary to their highest cultivation. It repre- 
sented the first chapter in that prolonged cultural enter- 
prise which was in course of time to take in the greater 
part of Europe. It exhibited in action abroad an Ireland 
glowing in all her first young-eyed enthusiasm, her mind 
enraptured by the wonders of the ancient classics, her 
heart thrilled and overcome by the revelation of the Chris- 
tian mysteries. 

2. Ireland of the Sixth Century 

No close student of Irish history but must feel that 
in the Ireland of the sixth century he is in the presence 
of one of those movements or crises rare in the history 
of civilization and destined to affect its whole subsequent 
course. Something of the kind — and it is the supreme 
example — ran its course in Athens in the fifth century 
B. C. There was a similar manifestation in Rome dur- 
ing the century that preceded our era, and the thirteenth 
century saw parallel movements in France and Italy. 
Their similitudes may be noted in the crucial stages 
that occur in the life of the individual dividing one 
portion of his life from another. Something emotional 
comes to a head, there is a coalescing of forces, a chemical 
explosion, a parturition, a blossoming and a subsequent 
illumination or alteration of vision that is enduring. In 
the case of nations there is a sudden appearance of a group 
or procession of great minds, such as in the ordinary 
course appear only at long intervals, whose works mold 
the national tongue and are subsequently appealed to as 
the national classics, the holy writ and depository of their 

104 



The Irish Kingdom of Scotland 

revelations, or whose work results in the foundation of 
great institutions that endure for centuries. 

In the Ireland of the sixth century we feel ourselves in 
the presence of the phenomena of some such crisis. Had 
we the full literature of Ireland or even so much of it 
as has been proportionately spared in other countries, we 
would probably find therein a manifestation of the human 
spirit with few parallels in history. But even the precious 
fragments left to us give clear indications of what we have 
lost, as stray pieces of Greek sculpture or Egyptian ma- 
sonry indicate the proportions of the statue, or temple, to 
which they belonged. 

In the case of Ireland we note a sudden grouping of 
men who from one cause or another — by the magic of 
their personality or the strength of their intellect or by 
the prestige acquired through the establishment of great 
institutions, or the initiation and guidance of great move- 
ments set influences in motion that gather momentum even 
after their deaths. The sixth century in Ireland was 
indeed prolific in great men. Towering above them all 
we may gaze with studious eyes on the mighty Columcille, 
a figure for all its strangeness as familiar and human as 
any during the whole Middle Ages. Almost contem- 
poraneous with him is Columbanus, the most energetic 
and scholar-like character in the Europe of his day, whose 
work on the Continent proved as fateful and fruitful as 
the work of Columcille in Ireland. In the early years 
of both of them the "Twelve Apostles of Erin," in whose 
company Columcille is numbered, lived in the land. 
Ciaran 1 who founded Clonmacnois, Finnian who founded 

1 Ciaran is credited in bardic compositions with the first literary recen- 
sion of the Tain. The Leabar na h'Uidre or Book of the Dun Cow, the oldest 
big book in the Irish tongue, which also contains much Iliadic literature, 
including the Tain, is said to have been made from the skin of the dun 
cow that provided the student Ciaran with milk, but is probably copied from 
a book so made. 

105 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

Moville, Comgall who founded Bangor, Brendan 1 who 
founded Clonfert, Finnian who founded Clonard, Bren- 
dan of Birr and Cainnech of Ossory who figure so promi- 
nently in Adamnan as the personal friends of Columcille 
— they are but leading figures in a company every indi- 
vidual member of which stood forth as a burning beacon 
to subsequent ages. Nor was Ireland deficient in great 
kings during this era. Diarmid II who occupied the 
throne of Tara for a score of years and Aedh who was 
sovereign for more than another score both made their 
reigns memorable in Irish history. 

It was in the course of the sixth century that Ireland's 
most celebrated schools started on their full career. It 
was in that century that her ancient heroic literature, 
maturing towards perfection during the preceding ages, 
was cast in its fulness into the literary form in which we 
now know it, and that the literature of the new era, trans- 
formed and awakened by the new ideas of Christianity, 
blossomed into its first springtide. 2 It was towards the 
close of the century that the spiritual and material forces 
of the nation came together at Drumceat and set on foot 
a new epoch, reforming the bardic institution, reor- 
ganizing the entire educational system of the kingdom, 
and establishing a free Scotland in union with the mother- 
land. It was during this century that the overflowing 
energy of Ireland began to deluge Europe with a mis- 
sionary activity that read the Irish ferocity of enthusiasm 
and self-abnegation and the eloquence and daring of the 

i The copies of Brendan's Legend, which are preserved in Ireland and on 
the Continent, are numerous. It is still disputed whether in his famous Navi- 
gatio he reached part of the American continent. 

2 Tho valuable fragments have been preserved from the sixth century, 
the more striking specimens of the new literature left to us, in Latin rather 
than in Irish, belong to the seventh. Thus Cummian wrote his paschal epistle 
in 634; the Irish Augustin or ^iBngus wrote his striking work on miracles, 
apparently in Carthage, in 659; while Adamnan brought out his extant works 
in the last decade of the seventh century. 

106 



The Irish Kingdom of Scotland 

sinewy Irish intellect into the early history of every coun- 
try in Europe. 

It has been noted that the pedigrees of the leading 
families of Ireland converge most of them in the fourth 
century and in the family of Niall of the Nine Hostages. 
The monarch Niall died in the fifth year of the fifth cen- 
tury leaving a numerous progeny and the record of a life 
filled with exploits at home and expeditions abroad. His 
reign marked the beginning of an epoch. For six hundred 
years the descendants of Niall, with three or four ex- 
ceptions, succeeded each other in the sovereignty of Ire- 
land, a marvelous phenomenon in tumultuous Europe. 
Three of the sons of Niall 1 founded respectively the king- 
dom of Meath and the principalities of Tyrconnell and 
Tyrone, which combined to form the kingdom of Ulster. 
The descendants of Brian, the brother of Niall, delimited 
the kingdom of Connaught. It is clear that in the fifth 
and the sixth century Ireland had reached a condition of 
political development that no other country in Europe 
was to reach for centuries later. When during the reign 
of Diarmuid the triennial or septennial parliament of 
Ireland was held in Tara for the last time the curtain was 
rung down on a drama that had been enacted in the royal 
city from a date almost contemporaneous with the estab- 
lishment of the Irish monarchy itself. The reign of 
Diarmuid, who died in 563, lights up for us a clear picture 

iThey were Conaill Crimthann; Conaill Gulban (from whom Tyr [Lat. 
terra] Conaill, "Country of Conaill"); and Eoghan (from whom Tyr Eoghan 
or Tyrone, "Country of Eoghan"). Conaill Gulban gave the clan name to 
his descendants the Cinel Conaill, the family to which Columcille belonged. 
The terms: Clan, Cinel, Muintir, Cin, Ui or Hy, are all affixes signifying kin- 
dred, race, family, descendants — as Cinel Airt, race of Art; Ui or Hy Maine 
descendants of Maine. They were the forms in use in Ireland and Scotland 
before the establishment of surnames in the tenth and eleventh centuries. 
Mac means "son"; Ua or O, "grandson"; Ni, "granddaughter." 



107 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

in Irish history. Diarmuid himself 1 bears in our eyes the 
lineaments of a modern constitutional sovereign, wielding 
power with justice as well as energy, meting out the 
law to high and low alike, building up a modus vivendi 
with the church, and recognizing instinctively the checks 
and balances which defined his authority in the Gaelic 
state. His interest in education is demonstrated by the 
munificence and support he extended to the foundation 
of Ciaran at Clonmacnois 2 which later rivaled Armagh 
as the national university. His conflict with Columcille 
during the session of the national parliament at Tara 
which led to the battle of Culdreimhne reveals the 
monarch rather than the churchman as the upholder of 
the law. His conflict with Ruadhan, who, like Colum- 
cille, is numbered among the Fathers of the Irish church 
and whose ceremonial cursing of Tara figures in Irish 
history as an element in the decline and fall of the royal 
city, likewise shows up to us the saint rather than Diar- 
muid as the fount of trouble and discord. It seems to 
have been at the instance of Diarmuid that the Synod 
of Tailtenn was called, which sought to excommunicate 
Columcille for the bloodguiltiness of Culdreimhne. It 
is impossible to follow the events of the reign of Diarmuid 
and the consequences that issued from the convention of 
Drumceat without feeling that Ireland during this period 
with its ancient parliament, its system of fivefold 
sovereignty with the high monarch as the head of all, 

iThere is an ancient Irish life of King Diarmuid II, MS. H. 2.16, Trinity 
College, Dublin. His reign is remarkable as the one in which Tara ceased to 
be the legislative capital. His father was Fergus Cerbaill, son of Conaill 
Crinthann, and grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages. After his death his 
head was conveyed to Clonmacnois and his body was buried at Connor. See 
Reeves, Life of St. Col., by Adamnan, p. 67. 

2 In one of the panels of the great cross at Clonmacnois (A. D. 916), the 
clean-shaven Ciaran in his long robe and the bearded prince Diarmuid in 
short tunic are clearly shown in the act of setting up the tall cross, which 
was the first post of the founder. 

108 



The Irish Kingdom of Scotland 

with the kings of Leinster, Connaught, Ulster and Mun- 
ster directly beneath him, with its lower aristocracy of 
princes, nobles and chiefs, all bound up with the free 
population and clans by ties of close kindred, all recogniz- 
ing the national laws, synods and parliaments, all speaking 
the same tongue and delighting in the same literary heir- 
looms, had evolved a political state as superior to anything 
then known as her culture was superior. 

The ancient safeguards which restrained the power of 
the sovereign, so often cited as a reproach by foreign 
critics, merely show that the individual unit in the 
medieval Irish state had developed a sense of personal 
responsibility and freedom which the secularly opprest 
subjects in other lands did not acquire till modern times. 
Compare for example the political civilization of Ireland 
in the sixth century with the political civilization of 
England in the sixteenth, three centuries after the passing 
of Magna Carta. 1 In the sixteenth century the lawyers 
of Henry VIII gravely debated whether the English 
people were the personal property or merely the subjects 
of the sovereign. In sober fact they were his personal 
chattels. Abject and terrorstricken slaves, neither whose 
bodies nor souls nor thoughts were legally their own, 
watching in panic eagerness the mere nod of king or 
queen, anxious only to obey the royal will, which was the 
actual fount of law, of honor and of punishment, the 
helplessness of the English under the Tudors turned the 
kingdom into a worse than Oriental despotism. Within 
the space of a single generation the English people — 
every one of whom was, by the laws of Henry VIII, to 
which their parliament assented, theoretically a traitor, 

iThe value of the Magna Carta was more apparent to the kings* jesters 
than to anybody else. Few kings paid much attention to it. See p. 296. 

109 



Ireland and die Making of Britain 

liable to the death penalty, by the mere act of living 
and thinking — at the command of the sovereign changed 
their religion three different times. The popular agitation 
furnished a spectacle of national and individual cowardice 
that set neither form nor limit to its servility. It is to the 
honor of Ireland that not even in the sixth century could 
absolutism thus ride roughshod over the national spirit. 
Even at that early period the individual in the clan and 
in the kingdom, claiming kinship with its rulers, recog- 
nized himself as a unit in a great patriarchal organization, 
and yielded obedience to the law and honor to the head 
of the State, while holding inviolate his personal sense of 
freedom and dignity. 

i 
3. Ancient Pagan and Medieval Christian Ireland 

Ireland is the only one of the northern nations that was 
not first civilized by Christianity and indeed it is one of 
the boasts of Irishmen that there has never been a period 
in their ascertainable history when they were not a civi- 
lized people. The distinctive old Irish civilization grew 
out of the same soil and was fed by the same sap that 
gave life and birth to Greco-Roman civilization. Its 
inner strength and soundness are illustrated by the carry- 
ing forward from a remote antiquity to the age of Greek 
and Roman letters the masterpieces of Irish literature 
on which the subsequent literature of Ireland levied con- 
stant tribute. This was a tremendous feat. It placed 
Ireland at a single bound among the literary nations of 
antiquity, and in the field of heroic literature side by 
side with Greece alone. For Ireland's literature is not 
like Roman literature, a reproduction and imitation of 
Greek literature, but a parallel growth. In her ursgeula, 

no 



The Irish Kingdom of Scotland 

or sagas, she has what even Rome has not, a literature 
of heroic Iliads that is the independent, unadulterated, 
original creation in antiquity of the heart and lips of her 
people. The northern nations, apparently as free as she, 
as unmolested by Roman power, failed to accomplish 
this tour de force. It invests Ireland with a supreme 
glory. It marked her from the beginning as a nation of 
destiny and served as a fitting prelude to that medieval 
work which was to continue as an enduring foundation to 
subsequent civilization. 

By the sixth century Greco-Roman and the old Irish 
culture had become inseparably blended and a new Chris- 
tian polity had given breadth and stature to the older 
national entity which unassisted Irish experience had 
created. In Ireland alone are we enabled to look on the 
old life and the new — on that ultra-world which knew 
neither Roman nor Greek and on that world again trans- 
formed by Greek and Roman learning. 

Classical writers and the unknown authors of the old 
Irish epics reveal to us the unity of the civilization of 
the Celts, more clearly developed and defined in Ireland 
than elsewhere. We see them eating, drinking, playing 
and fighting. We note their great numbers and powerful 
physique; the magnificence of their funerals; their use 
of the chariot; their splendid horsemanship; their races 
and cattle-spoils; the ferocity of their onset in battle; the 
retinue around their princes; their astonishing apparel — 
dyed tunics, flowered with colors, fantastic, flaming cloaks, 
breeches, and wondrous buckles and ornaments of gold. 
We note their haughty self-confidence, as in the colloquy 
with Alexander, their chivalry in combat, their figurative 



in 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

rhetoric, and their belief in an Elysium and the immor- 
tality of the soul. 1 

It is a changed world into which the literature of 
medieval Ireland ushers us. The old magnificence is 
there, but it is a secondary theme. The great military 
encampments have been eclipsed by the sudden mustering 
of new legionaries — champions of wisdom, milites Christi, 
athletes of asceticism, sages, prophets and saints. Armagh 
has taken the place of Tara of the Kings, Bangor has be- 
come the rival of Tailtenn, Clonard has out-gloried 
Emain-Macha. A living voice from out of the new 
strongholds comes to us across the space of 1,100 years: 

"Tara's mighty burgh perished at the death of her princes : with 
a multitude of venerable champions the great height of Machae 
(Armagh) abides. 

"Right valiant Loigure's pride has been quenched — great the 
anguish: Patrick's name, splendid, famous, this is on the increase. 

"The Faith has grown : it will abide till Doomsday : guilty pagans 
who are carried off, their raths are not dwelt in. 

"Rathcroghan it has vanished with Ailill offspring of victory: 
fair the sovereignty over princes that there is in the monastery 
of Clonmacnois. 

"Choirs lasting, melodious, around Ciaran, if thou shouldst men- 
tion him; with the victorious tumult of great Clonmacnois." 2 

New ideals have taken the place of the old. Cattle- 
spoils give way to contests of dialectical valor. Searches 
for deserts in the ocean succeed to martial expeditions 
abroad. The new literature is both in Irish and in Latin, 

i The chief epics of the Irish Heroic cycle are: The Tain; Deirdre and the 
Sons of Uisneach; Conchobar's Vision; The Battle of Rosnaree; Conchobar's 
Tragedy; The Conception of Cuchulain; The Training of Cuchulain; The Woo- 
ing of Eimer; Death of Conlaoch; Cuchulain's Adventure at the Boyne; Intoxi- 
cation of the Ultonians; Bricriu's Banquet; Eimer's Jealousy; Pining of 
Cuchulain; Conaill's Red Rout and the Lay of the Heads; Capture of the Sidh; 
Phantom Chariot of Cuchulain; Death at Cuchulain; Recovery of the Tain 
Through the Resurrection of Fergus. The Heroic or Cuchulain cycle took its 
shaping in the first century, B. C. It is later than the Mythological cycle 
and earlier than the Fenian cycle of epics. 

2Felire of ^Tngus (c. 800 A. D.), edited by Whitley Stokes, pp. 24-5. 

112 



The Irish Kingdom of Scotland 



and the alteration of outlook and purpose is fundamental. 
While the old literary tradition marches forward, draw- 
ing perpetually from the original fountain, the new litera- 
ture talks the accent and thought of the empire. It has 
become practical: the purpose is not any longer primarily 
to thrill, to terrify, or to amuse, but is a call to action, 
to reformation and to sacrifice. Its heroes are not gods 
and fighting men. They are monastic founders and 
scholars, poets and philosophers, legislators and saints. 
The biographies of the distinguished Irishmen of the 
epoch constitute in themselves a volume of literature that 
reconstructs for us the old Irish world and peoples 
it with living men and women in whom legend and won- 
der commingle with ripe scholarship and complete in- 
tellectual integrity. 

4. The Military Conquest of Scotland 

It was from the midst of an Ireland thus intimately 
known to us and thus carrying on the tradition of Irish 
as well as Greek and Roman culture that the men who 
conquered, colonized and Christianized the northern half 
of Britain went forth to their work. Little more than 
an outline is necessary to delineate the steps by which the 
military conquest of Scotland was completed. 

Irish Scots had crossed the Strath-na-Maolle of the 
Gaels, the northern arm of the Mare Hibernicum of the 
Romans, and the North Channel of modern days, and 
settled in that part of Caledonia which the Romans called 
Vespasiania, some hundreds of years before Angle, or 
Saxon, or Jute, had appeared on the rim of civilization. 
The Venerable Bede refers to the migration: "In course 
of time Britain, besides the Britons and Picts, received a 
third nation, Scotia, who, issuing from Hibernia, under 
9 113 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

the leadership of Riada, secured for themselves, either 
by friendship or the sword, settlements among the Picts 
which they still possess." 1 

From at least the second century onwards Iriih expedi- 
tions crossed from Ireland into North Britain and gradu- 
ally conquered and colonized the southwestern parts of 
the country. From the fourth century onwards stronger 
Irish forces crossed over and gradually extended the 
conquest of the country, the larger part of which was 
in the hands of the Picts. Towards the close of the fifth 
century, to follow the chronology of Tigerneach, a power- 
ful Irish expedition crossed over into Caledonia under 
three brothers, the princes Fergus, Loarn and Angus, sons 
of Ere, of the royal house of Ireland, and established 
themselves in what is now Argyleshire, Bute and the 
Hebrides. The Gaelic form of Argyle is Airer-Gaedhil, 
that is the territory of the Gael, or Irish, and the name 
is therefore a living record of these early colonizations. 

Fergus Mor became first king of the Gaels or Irish 
now settled in Caledonia and his death is recorded by 
Tigerneach, the Irish annalist, at the year 502. Fergus 
was succeeded by a long list of kings, the most conspicuous 
of whom was Cinead, or Kenneth, mac Alpin (surnames 
were not in vogue at that early time and the "mac" here, 

1 Hist. Eccl. This account by Bede is true only in so far as it indicates 
that the Irish migration to Scotland was gradual and did not begin under the 
sons of Ere. No Irish leader named Riada headed an Irish migration to Scot- 
land. Riada, the ancestor of Fergus, lived three centuries earlier. It was 
about the year 470, according to Tigerneach, when the sons of Ere, Fergus 
and his brothers went from Ireland to Scotland. Fergus was king of Dal 
Riada in the northeast corner of Ireland. The crossing meant that the 
princes established their rule over the Irish settlements of that region. Irish 
genealogies show that the same dynasty and the same kings ruled Dal Riada 
in Ireland and the Irish colonists in Scotland till the Norse occupied Can- 
tyre and thus cut off the Irish territory from the Scottish territory in which 
the kings of Dal Riada had become resident. When this separation took 
place, the title of "King of Dal Riada" was abandoned. The last king who 
bears the title in the annals is Donn Coirci, 792; and in 794, the same annals 
record "the devastation of all the islands of Britain by the heathen." (Mac- 
Neill, Phases of Irish History, 195.) 

114 



The Irish Kingdom of Scotland 



without the capital, means the "son" of Alpin literally) , 
who in the year 842 conquered the whole kingdom of 
the Picts, carrying his victorious Irish forces as far north 
as Caithness and to the south over the Tweed and well 
into England. In the reign of Stephen, King of England, 
the Irish Scots in Britain held three northern countries 
of what is now England, while such names as that of 
Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria, show how deeply the 
Irish invasion had penetrated to the south. 

Sixty kings of the Irish race reigned in Alba, or Scot- 
land, during a period of nearly eight centuries, from the 
time of King Fergus, A. D. 502, to the death of Alexander 
III in 1286 A. D. During that period Irish culture and 
the Irish language became established over all Scotland, 
and the intercourse between Scotland and the other Irish 
provinces of Munster, Connaught, Ulster, Leinster and 
Meath, was as constant as was the intercourse between 
the inland provinces themselves. 

So Scotia Major, as Ireland was sometimes called, and 
Scotia Minor formed a single country and nation of six 
provinces, or kingdoms, each with separate kings, of 
whom one was the high-king, or Ardrigh, each speaking 
the same tongue, and each looking back on a national his- 
tory common to them all. In course of time the influence 
of the Francii, or Norman and Angevin French who 
under William the Conqueror had made themselves mas- 
ters of England crossed the English border northwards 
into the Scot Lothians, with first the French and later the 
English language as medium, just as Norman French 
influence almost simultaneously crossed the sea westward 
into Leinster. But centuries had yet to pass before English 
was to displace Irish as the language of the Scottish 
people. 

"5 



CHAPTER X 

COLUMCILLE, APOSTLE OF SCOTLAND 

i. Archpresbyter of the Gael. 2. A Christian Cuchulain. 3. The Facts 
of His Life. 4. His Career as Monastic Founder. 

i. Archpresbyter of the Gael 

IN this conquest of the northern half of Britain the 
role of spiritual proconsul was played by the famous 
Columcille, "the high saint and high sage, the son 
chosen of God, even the archpresbyter of the island of the 
Gael, the brand of battle set forth with the divers talents 
and gifts of the Holy Ghost." Marvelous indeed are 
the characterizations which the skilled medieval writers 
apply to this prince of the Irish royal line, who appears 
to have been born also to the natural purple of intellect 
and spirit that has marked from the beginning the born 
leader of men. Sage, prophet, poet — dove of the cell — 
lovable lamp, pure and clear — silvery moon — a diadem 
on every train — a harp without a base chord — a child 
noble, venerable, before God and man — a child of the 
King of Heaven and earth — man of grace — physician 
of the heart of every age — manchild of long-sided Ethne 
— there never was born to the Gael, we are told, offspring 
nobler or wiser or of better kin than he — there hath not 
come of them another who was meeker or humbler or 
lowlier. "Noble insooth was Columcille's kindred as re- 
gards the world; for of the kindred of Conaill, son of 
Niall, was he. By genealogy he had the natural right 
to the kingship of Ireland and it would have been offered 
to him had he not put it from him for the sake of God." 

116 



Columcille, Apostle of Scotland 



"Angelic in appearance, graceful in speech, holy in work," 
as Adamnan describes him, it is clear that this remarkable 
figure made a deep impress on the imagination of his 
age. With a score of streamlets from Ireland's bluest 
blood uniting in his veins, 1 richly endowed in body and 
mind, of great height and powerful in physique, with 
hair curling like the ringlets of a Greek god, with face 
broad and cornel} 7 ", eyes gray, large, and luminous, a voice 
resonant, musical and deep, that could be heard at the 
distance of fifteen hundred paces, a lionhearted being 
whose energy, glowing with steady fire, would not permit 
him to spend even the space of an hour without some 
occupation, Columcille left an astonishing record of per- 
formance behind him and still looms over the fourteen 
centuries that divide us as one of the most impressive 
figures of the Middle Ages. 

In his character and in his extraordinary career we 
seem to see embodied, more than in any other figure, the 
aspiration, the passion, the exaltation, the energy of the 
Ireland of the sixth century. Romance and poetry speed- 
ily made him their own. Columbanus was a contempo- 

1 A member of the reigning family in Ireland and closely allied to that 
of Dalriada in Scotland, he was, as Reeves notes, eligible to the sovereignty 
of his own country. His half-uncle, Muircertach, was on the throne when 
he was born, and he lived through the successive reigns of his cousins, King 
Domnaill, King Fergus, and King Bocaid; of his first cousins, King Ainmire 
and King Baedan; and of King Aed, son of Ainmire. His immediate lineage 
stands as follows: 
Niall of the Nine Hostages Earc Echin, 7th in 



379-405 



Conaill Gulban, ancestor of 
the Cinel Conaill, d. 464 



Loarn, 1st king of 
Scot Dalriada 



Fergus Cennfada 



-Erca 



descent from 

Cathaeir Mor, 

A. D. 120 

Nave, or Noe 



Dimma 



Fedlimid 



Aetnea 



COLUMCILLE 

117 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

rary of Columcille, and outside of Ireland accomplished 
a work paralleling that of Columcille within the Gaed- 
haltacht. He was Columcille's junior by twenty-two 
years. He was twenty years old when Columcille set out 
for Iona. He sailed for the Continent when Columcille 
was twenty-two years in Iona. He himself was, like 
Columcille, the embodiment of the spirit and striving, 
the awakened heart and developing intellect of his coun- 
try, and he made an extraordinary impression abroad on 
the age in which he lived. But Columbanus, remarkable 
as his personality was, remained totally unknown in 
Ireland. Marvelous as were his gifts, he cut absolutely 
no figure in Irish history and his career and personality 
appear commonplace compared with the career and the 
personality of Columcille. We have a life of Columbanus, 
written by one of his immediate disciples, 1 just as we have 
such a life of Columcille. We have Latin epistles written 
by the hand of Columbanus, as well as Latin poems, rules, 
instructions, sermons, directions, wonderful for their age. 
From the authentic voice of Columcille himself there is 
little that does not touch on the unearthly or that is not 
in meter, Irish or Latin. In the stories that have come 
down to us concerning him the poetical element is almost 
always put forward in front of the practical, and in few 
episodes of his career is he ever shown as playing a 
subordinate part. He is ever the high hero, the victor, 
the champion, the darling of the gods, the idol of men 
and women, the child of fortune, born to command in 
heaven and in hell as well as upon the earth. Columcille 
represents the poetry, as Columbanus may be said to repre- 
sent the prose, of the Ireland of the sixth century, j 

i Jonas in Migne, Pat. Lat., LXXXVII, Cols. 1009-46. Both Columbanus 
and Columcille were more fortunate than St. Patrick in respect to their 
biographers' nearness to their own time. The earliest reference to St. 
Patrick is in the paschal epistle of Cummian (634) — "Sanctus Patricius papa 
noster." 

n8 



Columcille, Apostle of Scotland 

2. A Christian Cuchulain 

The atmosphere of idolatry which wrapped Columcille 
round in life crystallized into something of an apotheosis 
in death. He became the Christian Cuchulain of the 
Irish race, the wonder-working miles Christi, whose ex- 
ploits performed against the powers of darkness rivaled 
those of the pagan hero who in an earlier day had been 
chief among "the curled and rosy youth of the kingdom." 
The legends that grew around his name took the epic 
note and form as they passed from mouth to mouth and 
found credence even in the ears of the scholars. Adam- 
nan, the chief biographer of Columcille, was a man of 
cultivated judgment, steeped in Roman learning. In 
preparing the life of his celebrated kinsman he took pains- 
taking care, he tells us, in endeavoring to sift the false 
from the true. 1 

But the popular apotheosis of Columcille also took 
captive the imagination of a man as capable as Adamnan. 
After the battle of Troy the poets in the Greek-speak- 
ing towns collected the traditions and adventures of the 
heroes and made a diversion of them for the public. 
From such material and through such processes was the 
Iliad born and from parallel materials and processes were 
developed the epics of the Irish heroic cycle, in which 
the youthful hound of Ulster plays the high role. Adam- 
nan's life of Columcille, despite its intentionally historical 
character, occupies in the Christian field a place com- 
parable to these stories in the pagan field. His work is 
a Christian epic in which the accomplishments of Colum- 
cille as scribe, statesman, missionary, monastic founder 

iln the second preface to his work he tells us that it is the substance 
of narratives learned from his predecessors and is founded either on written 
authorities anterior to his own time or on what he learned himself from 
ancient men then living. He talks of "witnesses, as the law requires." 

lip 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

and scholar are indeed revealed to us, but only inciden- 
tally and in the background and environment of the story. 
In the foreground we see Columcille performing in the 
miraculous role in which that age loved first to view 
him, and indeed if in the pagan literature of Ireland we 
recognize the introduction here and there, by the hand 
of the Christian literateur of a later age, elements foreign 
to its first shaping, it may be said with truth in the nar- 
rative of Adamnan we find in the formation of character 
and episode that love of romance and high superhuman 
exploit cultivated by pagan epic from a remote antiquity. 

In the Tain we watch the high and vehement Cuchulain 
accomplishing prodigies of valor. Single-handed he holds 
the ford against the army of Queen Maeve. Hovering 
around them unseen all day he kills as many as a hundred 
of them in the night with his sling. His anger at the 
boiling-point melts the snow around him. With his 
vigorous edge-stroke he could at will take off all the hair 
of an opponent from poll to forehead and from ear to 
ear as clean as with a razor without drawing blood. With 
his oblique transverse stroke he could divide an antagonist 
into three equal segments falling simultaneously upon 
the ground. He conquers the bird-shaped demons of the 
air, the monstrous plaguing forms of the war-goddess 
Morrigan, and the spells of the magician Cailtin and 
his twenty-seven sons. The tracks of the wheels of his 
chariot circling round the Connaught army rise up like 
fortifications as he spreads havoc amid the uncounted host. 

Hardly a whit inferior to Cuchulain in his own field as 
wonder-worker Columcille is pictured in the pages of 
Adamnan. His wisdom was supernal like the valor of 
Cuchulain. "Through a wonderful experience of his 
inner soul he beheld the universe drawn together and 

120 



Columcille, Apostle of Scotland 

laid open to his sight as in one ray of the sun." He healed 
diseases. He raised the dead to life. He subdued the 
furious rage of wild beasts. He expelled by a word and 
sign hosts of malignant demons. He calmed the surging 
waves and changed the direction of the winds. Celestial 
light played around him and celestial legions descended 
to keep him company. He saw the souls of men ascending 
to the highest heavens, or descending among the demons 
of hell. He looked into the future and foretold the 
destinies of men. His voice breathed incessant prophecy 
and preternatural revelation. 

Yet beneath all this aura of legend and wonder there 
is a solid accompaniment of fact and historic reality 
which has preserved Columcille to us as a living, breath- 
ing, human personality, whose course from the cradle 
to the grave is laid bare to us with a distinctness lacking 
in any other career during the early Middle Ages. No 
legendary dim figure is Columcille but a great and strik- 
ing historical character whose work constitutes a fact 
in history as enduring and indissoluble as that of Caesar. 
Legend made Columcille its own as it made Charlemagne 
its own. But as Charlemagne had his Einhard as well as 
hisTrouvere, so Columcille had numerous witnesses to the 
realities of his life as well as to its supposed wonders. 
Nobody can doubt that Adamnan, for example, described 
the phenomena and incidents of his patron's life as they 
appeared to those who were living observers. It is only 
in the supernatural agencies to which he ascribes natural 
acts and processes that he goes beyond the record. The 
facts themselves and their environments may be accepted; 
the explanation of the facts often indicates the line where 
pious fancy has superimposed the element of legend on 
reality. 

121 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

3. The Facts of His Life 

Hardly does Columcille appear to have been in his 
grave before his friends and admirers began to set down 
the facts of his life for the benefit of posterity. Even 
in his life Dalian Forgaill, the poet laureate of Ireland, 
wrote a poetic eulogy of his work at Drumceat, still with 
us in its archaic form and heavily annotated. 1 Mura, 
his companion, and Baithene, his intimate and immediate 
successor, wrote memoirs of him. Cuimine, seventh ab- 
bot of Iona (657-669) wrote a treatise on his virtues 
which has been preserved. 2 The work of Adamnan, who 
wrote c. 691-3, has been described as "the most complete 
piece of such biography that all Europe can boast of, 
not only at so early a period, but even through the whole 
Middle Ages." 3 To this succeeded a life by John of Tin- 

lAmra Choluim Chilli by Dalian Forgaill, ed, and transl. by O'Beirne 
Crowe, Dublin, 1871. 

2 It is partly included in the third book of Adamnan's work, but has been 
independently preserved. 

spinkerton, Enquiry, Pref. Vol. 1 p. xlviii (Edinb. 1814). A copy of this 
work of Adamnan, written by Dorbene, who was elected abbot of Iona in 
713, and who died in that year was discovered by Dr. Ferdinand Keller in 
1854 at the bottom of an old chest in the public library of Schaffhausen. It 
proved to be the identical MS., formerly at Reichenau, copied by the Irish 
Jesuit Stephen White, and from his copy used by John Colgan for his Trias 
Thaumaturga published in 1647, and the Bollandists in 1698, and to-day it 
is the oldest MS. in Switzerland. It was edited in 1857, by Dr. William 
Reeves with a perfection of scholarship and painstaking research, which puts 
his work on a level with O'Donovan's edition of the "Annals of the Four 
Masters." Reeves showed himself familiar not merely with the main stream 
of Irish history, but with its numerous accessories and tributaries. In con- 
centrating his varied information and resources on any desired point and 
presenting his material in vivid order, he writes with the accurate knowledge 
almost of an eye-witness and contemporary and the Ireland of the sixth and 
seventh century passes before us as though a world in which the modern 
actors were still living. The original MS. has a colophon which ends thus: 
'Whoever readeth these books on the virtues of St. Columba, let him pray 
to the Lord for me Dorbene that after death I may possess eternal life." 
The title page of Reeves' edition reads: "The life of St. Columba, Founder 
of Hy. Written by Adamnan, ninth abbot, of that Monastery. The text printed 
from a MS. of the eighth century: with the various readings of six other 
manuscripts preserved in different parts of Europe. To which are added 
copious notes and dissertations, illustrative of the early history of the 
Columbian institutions in Ireland and Scotland." "The Historians of Scot- 
land." Vol. 6, reproduces the work of Reeves with an English translation of 
the life. A new edition founded on that of Reeves, with a new translation, 
by J. T. Fowler, appeared in 1894. "St. Columba of Iona," by Lucy Menzies 
(1920) has also some new features. 

122 



Columcille, Apostle of Scotland 

mouth and the old life of unknown authorship written 
in Irish and contained in the Book of Lismore, as well 
as another independent Latin memoir. The Book of 
Leinster, the Leabar Breac, or Speckled Book, and other 
Irish compilations have notices concerning him, while 
Bede, Alcuin, Walafrid Strabo and Notker Balbulus 
likewise refer to him. They are but the vanguard of 
a procession that has endured to our day. 1 Of all the 
influential personages born in Ireland in her long prime, 
men distinguished by high birth, lofty talent, and accom- 
plishing eminent work in Ireland and abroad, to Colum- 
cille alone, by a singular destiny, has been allotted through 
the ages his fair meed of fame. He still stands before 
us a commanding, aged, inscrutable and yet familiar fig- 
ure, surrounded by a crowd of men, who assisted or suc- 
ceeded him in his work, and who are known to us chiefly 
because of him. 

Columcille was born in 521 at Gartan close to the 
Atlantic shore in the beautiful territory of the Cinel 
Connaill of which his father, Fedhlimidh, was a ruling 
prince. The reigning high monarch of Ireland was his 
half-uncle, while his mother Ethne was the direct de- 
scendant of the line of Cathaoir Mor which gave Leinster 
its kings. Reared at Kil-mac-nenain, celebrated later 
as the site of the inauguration of the O'Donnells as 
Princes of Tyr-Connaill, Columcille received some pre- 
liminary teaching at the hands of Finnian in his famous 
foundation at Moville. The strictly lay element in his 
education was next acquired in the Leinster school of 
the bards presided over by the aged Gemman. The old 

1 The last and most copious of the manuscript lives of Columcille is a 
compilation of all existing documents and poems both in Latin and Irish, 
made by the order of his clansman, Manus Ua Domnaill, Prince of Tyrcon- 
nell, in 1532. It is preserved in a large vellum folio in the Bodleian Library 
at Oxford and has not yet been printed. 

I23 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

Gaelic life has a number of delightful anecdotes relating 
to this early period and from one of them we learn that 
the old Roman practice of teaching the alphabet by means 
of lettered cakes, alluded to by Horace, 1 had taken root 
in Ireland. "Now when the time of reading came to 
him (Columcille) the cleric went to a certain prophet 
who abode in the land to ask him when the boy ought 
to begin. When the prophet had scanned the sky he 
said: Write an alphabet for him now.' The alphabet 
was written in a cake. And Columcille consumed the 
cake in this wise, half to the east of the water and half 
to the west of the water. Said the prophet, through grace 
a prophecy: 'So shall this child's territory be, half to 
the east of the sea and half to the west of the sea; that is, 
in Ireland.' " 2 

From the school of Gemman, Columcille went to Fin- 
nian's great establishment at Clonard, where he began to 
study for the priesthood, and where he had the society 
of the remarkable group of men, both young and old, 
who with himself became later celebrated as the "Twelve 
Apostles of Erin." The old Irish life tells us that each 
man of the future bishops there used to grind a quern 
in turn. "Howbeit an angel from heaven used to grind 
on behalf of Columcille. That was the honor which the 
Lord used to render him because of the eminent noble- 
ness of his race." A fellow student and particular friend 
of Columcille at Clonard was the celebrated Ciaran, later 
founder of Clonmacnois. The Lismore life tells us that 
once there appeared to Finnian a vision concerning them, 
to wit, two moons arose from Clonard, a golden moon 
and a silvery moon. The golden moon went into the 

i Sat. I. ii 25. See Gaidoz, Les gateaux alphabet! ques, Paris, 1886. 
2 Anecdota Oxoniensia, Med. and Mod. Ser. 5 (Lives of the Saints from the 
Book of Lismore), ed., Whitley Stokes, p. 172. 

124 



Columcille, Apostle of Scotland 



north of the island and Ireland and Scotland gleamed 
thereby. The silvery moon went on till it stayed by the 
Shannon and Ireland at her center gleamed. That, we 
are told, "was Columcille with the grace of his noble kin 
and his wisdom, and Ciaran with the refulgence of his 
virtues and good deeds." 

From Clonard Columcille passed on to the school of 
Mobhi at Glasnevin, near Dublin, whither he seems to 
have been accompanied by Ciaran, Comgall and Cain- 
nech. There on one occasion, the Book of Lismore life 
tells us, the clerics were considering what each of them 
would like to have in the great church which Mobhi had 
built. " 'I should like,' saith Ciaran, 'its full of church 
children to attend the canonical hours.' 'I should like,' 
saith Cainnech, 'to have its full of books to serve the 
sons of Life.' 'I should like,' saith Comgall, 'its full of 
affliction and disease to be in my own body to subdue 
me and to repress me!'" Then Columcille chose its full 
of gold and silver to cover relics and shrines withal. 
"Mobhi," the story goes on, "said it should not be so, 
but that Columcille's community would be wealthier than 
any community in Ireland or Scotland." 

The plague of 544 visited Ireland while Columcille 
was at Mobhi's foundation and it fell heavily on the 
community, which numbered about fifty members. Co- 
lumcille as a precautionary measure went northward and 
shortly after received from his cousin, Prince of Aileach 
and later monarch of Ireland, the site of a monastery 
on the coast covering some 300 acres and clad by a splen- 
did forest of oak trees which gave to that beauty spot 
the name of Daire, or Derry. Here in 546, when he 
was twenty-five years old, Columcille founded the famous 
church and school which remained so dear to him in 

125 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

after life. A generation later, when Iona had become 
his home, he often reverted to it in his talk and occa- 
sionally allowed his feeling to find expression in poetry. 
"He loved that city greatly," says the Lismore life, "and 
said: 

For this do I love Derry, 
For its smoothness, for its purity, 
Because it is quite full of white angels 
From one end to the other." 1 

4. His Career as Monastic Founder 

About 553 he founded the school of Durrow in the 
present King's County which attained great celebrity. 
Durrow (Irish, Dairmagh, oak-plain) was like Derry 
named from the beautiful groves of oak which were scat- 
tered along the slope of Druim-Cain, and, as Columcille's 
chief institution it is mentioned by Bede. He appointed as 
its abbot Cormac, the son of Dima, who figures in the 
pages of Adamnan as an indefatigable voyager in the 
northern ocean, repeatedly visiting Iona and going as far 
north, it would appear, as Iceland. Cormac was a 
Momonian of the race of Heber and not of the kin of 
Columcille, and as a result he does not appear to have got 
on well with the southern Ui Niall with whom he found 
himself. This fact may account for his travels abroad. 
Columcille in one of his poems upbraids him for aban- 
doning so lovely an abode : 

"With its books and its learning 
A devout city with a hundred crosses." 

During the sixteen years interval between 546 and 562, 
when Columcille departed for Iona, he established a 

1 Anecdota Oxoniensia, ser. 5, p. 175. A more eloquent translation is given 
in Hyde, Literary History of Ireland, p. 169. The full poem in Irish was 
copied from a Brussels MS., by Michel Ua Clerigb for Colgan. It has been 
modified in transcription. 

126 



Columcille, Apostle of Scotland 



great number of other monasteries and schools in Ireland, 
of which thirty-seven are clearly marked, among them 
Kells, Swords, Drumclirr", Screen, Kilglass and Grum- 
columb. He was at this time at the height of his powers 
and enjoyed a reputation second to none in Ireland. His 
activity was prodigious and opposition appears to have 
kindled it into a fiercer flame. There is at this period 
little evidence of the Columcille described by Adamnan, 1 
"beloved by all" in whom "a holy joy ever beaming on 
his face revealed the joy and gladness with which the 
Holy Spirit filled his inmost soul." Thai seems to have 
been a later development. Columcille during this period 
displays all the ardor, the passion, and the self-will of 
his masterful character and is credited by Irish writers 
with having been the prime instigator of three bloody 
wars. 

The events which led to the battle of Culdreimhne, 
which was fought in 56 1 and which is traditionally assigned 
as a cause of Columcille's exile to Iona, cast a dramatic 
light on the feelings and aspirations of the epoch, the 
union and clash of barbaric passion and the highest cul- 
ture, culminating on the lofty stage set by the Irish nation 
in parliament assembled under the ancient Truce of God 
at Tara. Finnian of Moville, with whom Columcille 
had first studied, had visited Rome and returned with a 
copy of the Psalms, probably the first translation of the 
Vulgate of St. Jerome that had appeared in Ireland. Fin- 
nian apparently valued his treasure so highly that he did 
not want anyone to copy it, but Columcille, who was a 

1 The commentator on the Felire of J33ngus describes Columcille as "a 
man well formed, with powerful frame; his skin was white, his face broad, 
and fair and radiant, lit up with large, grey, luminous eyes; his large, well 
shaped head was crowned, except where he wore his frontal tonsure, with 
close and curling hair. His voice was clear and resonant, so that he could 
be heard at the distance of 1,500 paces, yet sweet with more than the sweet- 
ness of birds." He himself in one of his poems speaks of his "grey eye that 
looks back to Erin." 

127 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 



skilled scribe, succeeded by sitting up several nights, in 
making a secret transcription which Finnian, when he 
learned of it, claimed as his property. Columcille refused 
to surrender his transcription and the matter was brought 
up for decision at the court of the High Monarch, Diar- 
muid II, at Tara. The decision is the first we know of 
in the law of copyright and as such is extremely inter- 
esting, tho it is condemned by most of the Irish annalists. 
Appealing to the precedent of the old Irish laws that 
le gach boin a boinin "with every cow her calf!" the 
monarch decided in favor of Finnian, adjudging that 
"as with every cow her calf, so with every book its son." 
The decision greatly offended Columcille, to whom 
books were a passion, and fuel was added to his resent- 
ment by another event. It happened during the great 
Feis, or Parliament, of Tara, that the son of the King of 
Connacht, in violation of the law of sanctuary which was 
universally held as sacred on these occasions, slew the son 
of the High King's steward and, knowing the penalty 
was certain death fled to the residence in the royal city 
of the northern princes, Fergus and Domhnaill, who im- 
mediately placed him under the protection of Columcille. 
The offense was too grave, however, for temporizing, and 
King Diarmuid, who was a strenuous upholder of the 
law, had him immediately seized and put to death. The 
action exasperated Columcille to the last degree. Shak- 
ing the dust of Tara from his feet He sped northward 
and called on his kindred for vengeance. A great army 
was collected, led by Prince Fergus and Prince Domh- 
naill, two first cousins of Columcille, and by the King 
of Connacht, whose son had been put ffo death. The 
High King marched to meet the combination with all 
the troops he could muster, with the result that a furious 

128 



Columcille, Apostle of Scotland 

battle was fought between Benbulbin and the sea in 
which he was defeated with the loss of 3,000 lives. 

It was in the year following this battle that Columcille 
decided to leave Ireland. Fie had filled Ireland with 
arms and bloodshed and he seems not to have been in- 
sensible to the cloud that lay upon him. Adamnan tells 
us that a synod assembled at Tailtenn in Meath for the 
purpose of excommunicating Columcille. The assembly, 
however, was not unanimous. Brendan of Birr protested 
against any condemnation and later Finnian of Moville 
testified his sense of veneration for the accused, who had 
been his pupil. 

There is much evidence that Columcille's exile to Iona 
was assumed as a sort of penance, imposed on him by St. 
Molaise of Devenish, who, according to several Irish 
accounts, made the penalty one of perpetual exile. Other 
testimony would seem to indicate that the missionary en- 
terprise was voluntary. "Pro Christo peregrinari volens, 
enavigavit," the common formula of missionary enter- 
prise, is Adamnan's statement of his motive; with which 
Bede's expression "ex quo ipse praedicaturus abiit" is in 
keeping. That Columcille returned to Ireland repeatedly 
and took an active part in civil and religious transactions 
is demonstrable from Adamnan. 

In 563 Columcille, now in his forty-second year, set 
sail with a number of associates from his well-beloved 
Derry, determined, according to popular tradition, to 
convert in Scotland as many souls as had fallen at Cul- 
dreimhne. The parting was bitter and the lament ascribed 
to him reveals his feeling: 

Too swiftly my coracle flies on her way ; 

From Derry I mournfully turned her prow ; 
I grieve at the errand which drives me today 
To the land of the Ravens, to Alba, now. 
10 I2 9 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

How swiftly we glide ! there is a grey eye 
Looks back upon Erin, but it no more 

Shall see while the stars shall endure in the sky 
Her women, her men, or her stainless shore. 

The missionary labors of Columcille in Scotland, in 
collaboration with his devoted colleagues, extended over 
the remaining period of his life. The island of Hy was 
donated to him by King Conall, his kinsman, and there 
he established his celebrated monastery of Iona. The 
Scoti or Irish already in Scotland were nominally Chris- 
tians ; the Picts were not. Hence the conversion of these 
latter formed the grand project for the exercise of mis- 
sionary exertion and Columcille applied himself with 
characteristic energy to the task. He visited the Pictish 
king in his fortress, won his esteem, overcame the opposi- 
tion of his ministers, and planted Christianity in the 
province. He lived thirty-four years at Iona, and it is 
with his work with the island as a center and with his 
life after he had gone there that the biography of Adam- 
nan mainly deals. 



130 



CHAPTER XI 

COLUMCILLE AND BRETHREN AT IONA 

I. The Moving World of Ireland and Britain. 2. Ritual and Cere- 
monial. 3. Literary Work and Other Occupations. 4. Columcille 
and His Friendships. 

i. The Moving World of Ireland and Britain 

IN turning over the pages of Adamnan, we have 
brought home to us one of the precious functions 
which literature serves. Had we no Roman litera- 
ture, the material monuments of Rome would be almost 
as meaningless to us as the Pyramids and the Sphinx. 
Had we no Grecian literature, the marvels of Greek archi- 
tecture would tell us a story as broken almost as the 
cryptograms conned by archeologists from Babylonian 
mounds. Had we no pagan Irish literature, the Europe 
of the Celt, the Galatian and the Gaul would be as dead 
to us as an Egyptian mummy; its monuments would be 
as insoluble as the sentinel stones of Stonehenge and 
Carnac; and old wives' foreign tales would take the place 
of the authentic witness of antiquity. Had we no medieval 
Irish literature, medieval Ireland would be as incom- 
municable as medieval America. But the living litera- 
ture of ancient and early medieval Ireland is more copious 
and authoritative than the literature of all the rest of west- 
ern Europe put together, and of its medieval monuments 
there is hardly any work more informative and interesting 
than Adamnan's biography of Columcille. Regret is 
sometimes exprest that Adamnan did not write in Irish 
rather than in Latin; that he wrote the history of an 

131 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

individual rather than of a church or nation. But it 
is enough that the work is a masterpiece of its kind. It 
holds up for us as in a mirror the living soul and mind 
of the Ireland of the sixth and seventh centuries. It 
reveals to us the inmost thought, the breathing life, the 
spontaneous speech and gesture and the interior spiritual 
mechanism of the men who swung Europe from bar- 
barism back to civilization, and it is doubtful whether 
it could have gained in comprehensiveness without losing 
its priceless wealth of intimate disclosure and camera- 
like detail. Enough for us that through Adamnan and 
the other Irish authors of his time, we are permitted to 
gaze with entranced eyes on the moving world of Ireland 
and Hibernicized Britain bathed in the morning light of 
heroic pristine faith and culture. 

It is no static world of placid contemplation on which 
Adamnan throws the casement but an ever-shifting popu- 
lous scene of unflagging movement and varied occupation. 
Guests, distinguished and undistinguished, are perpetually 
coming and going. At Derry and Iona fleets of ships lie 
at anchor with crews not far away, ready to start on short 
notice either for Ireland or Britain. Occasionally at Iona 
one of the sailors is missing and there is a delay, but if 
the breeze is favorable, Columcille bids the traveler 
depart with confidence. We hear of voyages into the 
North "beyond the bounds of human enterprise," of huge 
sea monsters and swarms of smaller amphibians, of poach- 
ers among the young seals bred at Iona, and of Gallican 
sailors bringing news of an earthquake in Istria. The 
building of ships, houses and churches goes on incessantly. 
At Iona long boats are drawn loaded with hewn pine 
and oak, and fleets of twelve vessels carrying oak trees 
for building row out to sea with sailyards raised in the 

132 



Columcille and Brethren at Iona 

form of a cross. We hear of plowing, sowing, reaping 
and threshing; of the cultivation of oak groves and apple 
trees ; and of salmon fishing. Strangers signal across the 
sound from Mull by shouting or lighting fires and are 
ferried over the mile of water. 

The yachts, freightships and ferries on the water have 
their counterpart in the curri and chariots on the land. 
Columcille journeys forth in his chariot both in Iona and 
Ireland, on one occasion with the chariot unsecured by 
linchpins. A rich cleric mounted in a chariot drives 
pleasantly along the Plain of Breg (Magh Bregh, Meath) 
and Columcille prophesies that he will die lying on a 
couch with a prostitute and choked with a morsel of meat 
from his neighbor's cattle that had strayed within his 
walled enclosure. Most of Columcille's long journeys, 
covering in some cases hundreds of miles, were made 
however on foot with no greater help than that given by 
a staff. Tho the danger from wild beasts must have 
been imminent, Columcille and his companions do not 
seem to have carried any weapon. On one occasion it is 
stated that by prayer and the power of the eye he procured 
the death of a huge wild boar pursued by the hounds. 

The majority of the houses built by the brethren were 
apparently of wood, of heavy timber or wattles, while 
others were of stone, and that some of them were not 
small is made clear by the anxiety displayed by Colum- 
cille over the severe labor of the brethren on one of the 
buildings marked out by him at Derry. Many of the houses 
of the time were in fact white timbered mansions, glisten- 
ing in the sunlight on the summit of great duns, chambered 
and unchambered, thousands of which continue to this 
day. We hear of a magna domus and a monasterium 
rotundum — clearly Round Towers, as Petrie notes, were 

133 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

not unknown in the sixth century. The size of the monas- 
tery and school was limited by the demand, and grew 
with it. The cell of Columcille at Clonard became the 
portal to the later church ; his royal birth may have housed 
him in a chamber larger and more ornate than the retreat 
of the other students. Iona was a small community com- 
pared with the more renowned establishments in Ireland, 
but the references to guest chambers, kitchen, refectory, 
church, sacristy, and other chambers, and out-buildings 
give the impression of an extensive household. 

2. Ritual and Ceremonial 

The reception of guests and the deportment of the 
brethren towards one another were distinguished by a 
ritual and ceremonial as precise as the motions at a royal 
court. When a stranger arrived he was sometimes intro- 
duced at once to the abbot by whom he was kissed, and 
sometimes the interview was deferred. 'When an expected 
guest arrived Columcille and the brethren went to meet 
and welcome him. He was then conducted to the oratory 
and thanks returned for his safety. From this he was 
led to a lodging, hospitium, and water. was prepared to 
wash his feet. If a visitor happened to arrive on an 
ordinary fast day of the week, the fast was relaxed in 
his favor, and a consolatio cibi was allowed. If the guests 
numbered more than one, as in the case of the arrival 
of Comgall, Cainnech, Brendan and Cormac, all "holy 
founders," on one occasion, the celebrations, sacred and 
profane, were in accord with their rank. On this occa- 
sion the four illustrious guests agreed that Columcille 
should consecrate the mysteries of the Eucharist. Alms- 
giving was practised and valuable presents, under the 
name of "Xenia," were sent on one occasion to a man in 

i34 



Columcille and Brethren at Iona 

need. Itinerant beggars, who went about with wallets, 
had only a cold welcome, and grievous transgressors were 
excluded. 

Adamnan, himself an aristocrat belonging to Colum- 
cille's own line, and an intimate friend of at least three 
kings, Finnachta of Ireland, Aldfrid of Northumbria, 
and Buite of Pictland, shows in his narration of facts 
a lively sense of difference in rank. He refers habitually 
to the station of visitors and mentions whether they are 
of high or lowly position, and birth. He Latinizes into 
tigernes the Irish word "tigherna," lord. The type of 
historian who takes comfort in the delusion that the mon- 
arch of Ireland was a merely nominal figure-head, will 
find little consolation in Adamnan. He is a distinct 
believer in the divine right of kings. The high monarch 
is "the king of all Ireland." He is "by divine appoint- 
ment (ordinatus a Deo) king of all." It is Adamnan 
indeed who gives us the story of the first Christian inaugu- 
ration of a sovereign. 1 But there is a proper honor and 
rubric pertaining to each rank, spiritual and secular. A 
bishop for instance is received in the conventional hier- 
archy with the sort of honor which one officer of a state 
might extend towards another. Marked respect is shown 
to him by the abbot, who in his turn receives the homage 
of those of inferior spiritual rank. Fintan, for example, 
arriving at Iona and being presented to Baithene, the 
cousin and immediate successor of Columcille, kneels and 
remains in that posture until ordered by the abbot to rise 
and be seated. 

1 This was Columcille's inauguration of Aidan as King- of the Irish Scots 
to succeed Conaill in 575. The Irish coronation service used by Columcille 
was introduced by Irish missionaries into England and was thenceforth used 
for the inauguration of the English kings. It has been continued in large 
part in England to this day. The stone beneath the throne at "Westminster 
Abbey, brought from Scone, is likewise supposed to have been Irish. 

135 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

The authority of the abbot was almost absolute. He 
was wont on extraordinary occasions to summon the breth- 
ren to the oratory even in the dead of night and there 
address them from the altar and solicit their prayers. 
Occasionally he instituted a festival, proclaimed a holiday 
and enjoined the celebration of the Eucharist. As occa- 
sion offered he dispensed with a fast, relaxed the peni- 
tential discipline, or regulated its intensity. He gave 
license of departure which he signified with his benedic- 
tion. He was saluted by prostration. 

He forbade at pleasure admission to the island. When 
he thought fit he dispatched a chosen brother on a distant 
mission or for monastic purposes. He had control of 
the temporalities. When at home he was attended, except 
when he signified his wish to be alone. When abroad 
he was accompanied by a retinue, the members of which 
were styled viri sociales. Columcille inaugurated the 
first independent king of Scot Dalriada in Iona, and the 
ceremony was probably continued as an honorary function 
by the abbots who succeeded him. Columcille named his 
own successor and in the election preference was always 
given to the kin of the founder. 1 

3. Literary Work and Other Occupations 

Details wanting in Adamnan are often filled in by the 
biography in the Book of Lismore, 2 of later medieval 

1 The tradition of the high birth and princely connections of the governors 
of Columcille's foundations was well known abroad, and in the verses which 
Walafrid Strabo wrote concerning the life and death of Blaithmac of Iona, 
"whom wealthy Hibernia gave to the world," who was killed in a Danish 
raid on the monastery, reference is made to his kinship with the Irish kings: 

Regali de stirpe natus summumque decorem. 

Nobilitatis habens fiorebat regius heres (Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini II, 
p. 297). 

2 Anecdota Oxoniensia. Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore, edited 
with a translation, notes, and indices, by Whitley Stokes, D. C. L., Oxford, 
the Clarendon Press, 1890. Mediaeval and Modern Series 5. Betha Choluim 
chille, pp. 20-33; transl., pp. 168-181. 

136 



Columcille and Brethren at lona 

origin. Apart from the larger occupations connected with 
farming and building, we observe the brethren engaged 
in innumerable smaller occupations. Columcille him- 
self was skilful with his hands and an adept at making 
"crosses and writing tablets and book satchels and other 
church gear." His favorite occupation seems to have 
been writing, sometimes transcriptions, sometimes com- 
position. His last occupation in life was copying the 
scriptures and his ejaculation, "Let Baithene write the 
rest," was taken as an indication of his will in respect 
to his successor, whose ability as a scribe was a primary 
consideration. The total number of the works written 
by Columcille must have been great. The Lismore life 
credits him with 300 books — "many were the churches 
he marked out and the books he wrote, to wit, 300 churches 
and 300 books." Allowing for round numbers, it is cer- 
tain he left many works Hehincl him. Bede tells us that 
"writings of his life an3 ^discourses are said to be preserved 
by his disciples" (Lib. Ill, C. 4) , and the medieval tradi- 
tion is that he left a book' to every church founded by 
him. 1 He was prolific as a poet as well, tho of the enor- 
mous number of extant poems attributed to him, few 
can be genuine even in part. But the poetic mood was 
a frequent visitation : "Then he went to Clonmacnois with 
the hymn he made for Ciaran. For he made abundant 
praises for God's households, as said the poet: 

" 'Noble thrice fifty, nobler than every apostle, 

The number of miracles are (as) grass, 

Some in Latin which was beguiling, 

Others in Gaelic, fair the tale.' " 

1 Adamnan relates that after Columcille's death, and fourteen years before 
the date at which Adamnan himself wrote, during a drought at lona, the 
brethren walked around a newly plowed and sowed field, taking with them 
the white tunio of Columeille and some books written by his own hand, 
which they raised in the air, shaking the tunic three times, and opening the 
books and reading them on the Hill of the Angels (now called Sithean Mor). 

*37 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

But to a being so strenuous the writing of poetry could 
only have been a diversion and a relaxation. "He could 
not," says Adamnan, "spend the space of even one hour 
without study or prayer, writing or some other holy occu- 
pation. So incessantly was he engaged night and day 
in the unwearied exercise of fasting and watching that 
the burden of each of these austerities would seem to be 
beyond the power of all human endurance. And still in 
all these he was beloved by all; for the holy joy ever 
beaming from his face revealed the joy and gladness with 
which the Holy Spirit filled his inmost soul." 

"Surely," adds the Lismore life, "it was great lowliness 
in Columcille that he himself used to take off his monks' 
sandals and wash their feet for them. He often used 
to carry his portion of corn on his back to the mill and 
grind it and bring it home to his house. He never used 
to put linen or wool against his skin. His side used to 
come against the bare mold. A pillarstone used to be 
under his head for a bolster and he slept only so long as 
Diarmuid his fosterling was chanting the three chapters 
of the Beatus. He would arise up at once after that and 
would cry and beat his hands together, like a loving 
mother lamenting her only son. He would chant the 
three fifties on the sand of the shore before the sun would 
rise. In the day he attended to the hours. He offered 
Christ's Body and Blood. He preached the Gospel, he 
baptized, he consecrated." 

The culminating period in Columcille's career 
seems to have been reached following the parliament or 
convention of Drumceat, held in 575. The primary object 
of that parliament, which had been called together by 
the High Monarch Aedh, was the dissolution of the order 
of the bards, who had developed through the centuries 

138 



Columcille and Brethren at Iona 



an organization so powerful as to be a menace both to 
the State and the Church, and whose insolence and exac- 
tions had become an oppression to every man and woman 
enjoying wealth and rank enough to draw their poetic 
satire. Columcille's eloquent defense of the men who, 
despite their offenses, had served as guardians of the 
literary memorials of the kingdom, mitigated the sentence 
of extinction, and turned the current of opinion in the 
direction of a general reorganization and reduction ift 
numbers. His counsel in respect to the lay education 
of the country, which was largely in the control of the 
bards, led to the establishment of head colleges in each 
of the provinces with subsidiary colleges under them. He 
likewise, in union with Aidan, King of Scot Dalriada, who 
had accompanied him to the parliament, succeeded in 
relieving Scotland of the tribute which it had hitherto 
been obliged to pay to the High Monarch and giving it 
the status of a self-governing kingdom in union with the 
motherland. 

Following the parliament, the proceedings of which 
furnished a striking manifestation of his influence, 1 
Columcille was acclaimed by multitudes and countless 
gifts from the people of the Eilne (Magh Elne on the 
Dann) were laid out on the paved court of the monastery. 
Visiting Clonmacnois from Durrow some years later, from 
the famous monastery of Ciaran and all the grange farms 
around, the populace, headed by the Abbot Alithir, flocked 
with enthusiasm to meet him, "as if," says Adamnan, "he 
were an angel of the Lord. Humbly bowing down their 
faces to the ground they kissed him most reverently and, 
singing hymns of praise as they went, they conducted 

lAn extremely dramatic account of the proceedings and of the reception 
given to Columcille 1 at Drumceat, where he faced old enemies, is given in the 
Edinburgh MS., p. 22b; reproduced by Stokes, Anecdota Oxoniensia, Mediaeval 
and Modern, Series 5, pp. 309-315. 

139 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

him with all honor to the church. Over the saint as he 
walked a canopy made of wood was supported by four 
men walking by his side lest the holy abbot, St. Colum- 
cille, should be troubled by the crowds of brethren press- 
ing upon him." The luster and glory of his work in 
Scotland had then thrown a halo around him and senti- 
ment had changed greatly since, following Culdreimhne 
a quarter of a century earlier, the Synod of Tailtenn had 
sought to excommunicate him. 

4. COLUMCILLE AND HlS FRIENDSHIPS 

Like Adamnan, Columcille had, despite the impulsive 
and vehement temper that precipitated fierce wars even 
after his departure to Iona, a true genius for friendship. 
His passionate devotion to his own family and clan 
gleams alike in Adamnan and the other medieval litera- 
ture that abounds concerning him. This excess of affec- 
tion he imputed to himself as a fault. "So then Baithene 
related to him the famous vision, to wit, three chairs seen 
by him in heaven, even a chair of gold and a chair of 
silver and a chair of glass. Columcille explained the 
vision: 'Ciaran the Great, the wright's son, is the chair 
of gold, for the greatness of his charity and his mercy. 
Molaisse is the chair of silver because of his wisdom and 
his piety. I myself am the chair of glass because of 
my affection: for I prefer Gaels to (the other) men of 
the world, and the kindred of Conall to the (other) Gaels, 
and the kindred of Lugaid to the (rest of the) kindred 
of Conall.' m 

His extraordinary solicitude for the brethren who peo- 
pled his foundations, which Adamnan so signally illus- 

iLebar Breac or Speckled Book, p. 236, col. 2; Anecdota Oxoniensia, Med. 
and Mod., Series 5, p. 302. 

I40 



Columcille and Brethren at Iona 

trates, was an element and development of his partiality 
for his own kin who figured so largely in their composi- 
tion. But his friendships did not on that account run 
in narrow confines. He was on terms of intimacy with 
most of the great men of his day. Ciaran of Clonmacnois 
acted the part of an elder brother at Clonard and their 
friendship remained warm till Ciaran's early death in 
548. Comgall, founder of Bangor, and Cainnech of 
Ossory were not merely intimate friends but on occasion 
the companions of some of his long missionary journeys. 
Both these great men, along with Brendan of Clonfert, 
and Brendan of Birr were frequent visitors to Iona and 
other of his foundations. On one occasion Columcille 
foretells the coming of Cainnech in the midst of a tempest 
and orders the brethren to prepare the guest chamber and 
draw water to wash his feet. He never forgot his cham- 
pionship by Brendan of Birr before the excommunicating 
Synod at Tailtenn and when the latter died in 573 he 
instituted a festival at Iona in commemoration of his day. 
In his later days all Ireland longed to see him. "When 
Columcille had been thirty years in Scotland anxiety ( ?) 
seized the men of Ireland as to seeing him and as to 
communing with him before he went to death." 1 

Among the numerous company whom Columcille hon- 
ored with his friendship, many of them famous on their 
own account, standing out in a vivid lineament and life- 
like detail lacking in many a modern statesman, a strange 
attachment united Columcille to Cormac, the descendant 
of Lethain. He was of the line of Olliol Olum, King of 
Munster and pivotal ancestor of its nobility, and was 
thus far removed from kinship with Columcille, who nev- 

1 Edinburgh MS., p. 22b, apparently taken from the introduction to some 
copy of the Amra Choluim chille, Dalian Forgaill's poetic eulo&y of Colum- 
cille's work at the convention of Drumceat (Anecdota Ozon., Ser. 5, p. 309). 

141 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

ertheless set him over his loved Durrow in the midst of 
his own kin of the southern Hy Niall, who showed little 
toleration to the stranger. Under the circumstances it is 
not strange that Cormac should show that strong liking 
for travel and the sea which was his most distinguishing 
characteristic. Two extremely ancient poems in Irish 
embody the expostulations of Columcille to his friend for 
his abandonment of Durrow and the resultant colloquy. 
The opening passage of one of them touches on Cormac's 
navigations : 

Thou art welcome, O comely Cormac 

From over the all-teeming sea; 

What sent thee forth; where hast thou been, 

Since the time we were on the same path? 

Two years and a month to this night 

Is the time thou hast been wandering from port to port 

From wave to wave; resolute the energy 

To traverse the wide ocean. * 

Columcille's thoughts appear to have been continually 
with Cormac, and on one occasion he suddenly calls on 
the brethren to pray for the indefatigable navigator who 
"sailing too far hath passed the bounds of human enter- 
prise." On another occasion the brethren were talking 
about Cormac. He had taken boat some time before 
for the Orkney Islands and they were speculating from 
appearances whether or not he had had a prosperous 
voyage. The voice of Columcille breaks in on their col- 
loquy. They shall see Cormac that very day and have the 

i Copies of these poems are preserved in the Burgundian Library at Brus- 
sels in a volume of manuscript collections made in 1630, by Michel Ua Cle- 
righ, one of the Four Masters. Both the poems are found also in a MS., 
of the Bodleian Library, Laud 615 (pp. 34, 117), which contains a large col- 
lection of Irish poems, 136 in number, for the most part ascribed to Colum- 
cille. Reeves' Life of St. Columba, by Adamnan, gives both Irish poems with 
English translations, by Eugene O'Curry, from which the above passage is 
taken. Their titles are given in Colgan's list of the reputed writings of Colum- 
cille (Trias Thaum., p. 472a, num. 15, 16). 

142 



Columcille and Brethren at Iona 

account of his fortune from his own lips, he says. And 
so it turns out. Some hours afterwards Cormac steps 
into the oratory to the great satisfaction of all. But a 
journey to Iona, even to the Orkneys, seems to have been 
but a step to Cormac. We are told of a wild voyage of 
fourteen days' duration straight northwards before he 
touched land, whence it has been supposed he went as 
far as Iceland. He encountered not only the usual perils 
of the deep, but the attacks of sea monsters of hideous 
and unknown form, which struck against the oars and 
threatened the sides of the vessel. 

At the court of Brude, king of the Picts, Columcille 
had met Regulus of Orkney and had requested Brude 
to enjoin Regulus, as his tributary, to give protection to 
his friend Cormac, who, in his travels, was likely to be 
in the Orkneys. "Some of our brethren," he announced 
to his powerful convert, "have lately sailed to discover 
a desert in the pathless sea. If they should wander to 
the Orcadian Islands, do thou shield them from harm." 1 
We are told that through this recommendation Cormac's 
life was saved there when he was in imminent danger. 

Dicuil in his "De Mensura Orbis Terrae," 2 written in 
825, details to us the experiences of some Irish ecclesiastics 
who had dwelt in Iceland before 795. Cormac's voyages, 
however, took place over two centuries previous to that 
date. We learn likewise from Dicuil that Irish ecclesi- 
astics had dwelt in the Faroe Islands, which are situated 
midway between Iceland and the north of Scotland, for 
almost a hundred years before the time at which he was 
writing, and that other Irish navigators had sailed in 
the direction of the Arctic Circle until their journey north- 

1 Adamnan, Vita Col. (ed., Reeves, p. 366). 

2 Edited, Parthey, VII, 11-14. 

143 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

wards was stayed by the impenetrable wall of ice. Thus 
at least from the time of Columcille onwards Irish explor- 
ers were attempting, and attempting with extraordinary 
success from the point of view of the resources at their 
disposal, that exploration of the northern latitudes which 
with all the aids of modern civilization has been even now 
only partially accomplished. 



144 



CHAPTER XII 

DEATH OF COLUMCILLE 

I. The Last Scene at Iona. 2. Illuminated Manuscripts and Latin 
Poems. 3. By the Time of Adamnan. 4, The Hibernicizing of 
North Britain. 

i. The Last Scene at Iona 

IT is characteristic of the meticulous accuracy of Irish 
records that we know not merely the year and the 
month, but the very day and almost the very hour 
and minute of the night in which Columcille passed 
away. 1 It was just after midnight between Saturday the 
8th and Sunday the 9th of June, in the year 597, that 
there took place at Iona a scene, the story of which is as 
moving and humanly interesting as any that has come out 
of the North. 

The story is told in the last chapter of Adamnan, where 
he describes "How Our Patron Saint Columba Passed to 
the Lord." On the eve before his death the great man, hav- 
ing inspected the granary and the barn of the monastery 
and having exprest satisfaction that the brethren would 
be well supplied for the year, confided to his attendant 
Diarmuid that his end was near. A touching dialog then 
follows, which leaves Diarmuid weeping bitterly, while 
later on is depicted the oft-quoted incident of the white 
horse, "the obedient servant that used to carry the milk- 
vessels between the monastery and the byre," which wept 

1 On the subject of the accuracy of Irish annals, etc., consult Reeves, Pro- 
ceeding's of the Royal Irish Acad., Joyce, Social History of Ireland, I., pp. 
513-21; War of the Gaels with the Galls, ed., Todd, Introd. XXVI; Hyde, 
Literary Hist, of Ireland, 38-43; Kuno Meyer's "Early Relations between the 
Gael and Brython," read before Society of Cymmrodorion, May 28, 1896. 



11 



145 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

into Columcille's bosom and which he blest. Adamnan 
goes on : 

"And going forth from thence and ascending a small hill, which 
rose over the monastery, he stood for a little upon its summit, and, 
as he stood, elevating both his palms, he blessed his community and 
said, 'Upon this place, however narrow and mean, not only shall 
the kings of the Scots (i. e., the Irish) with their peoples, but also 
the rulers of foreign and barbarous nations (i. e., the Picts, English, 
etc.) with the people subject to them, confer great and no ordinary 
honor. By the saints of other churches also shall no common respect 
be accorded it/ 

"After these words, going down from the little hill and returning 
to the monastery, he sat in his cell writing a copy of the Psalms, 
and on reaching that verse of the thirty-third Psalm where it is 
written, 'But they that seek the Lord shall lack no thing that is 
good:' 'Here/ said he, 'we may close at the end of the page; let 
Baithin write what follows/ Well appropriate for the departing 
saint was the last verse which he had written, for to him shall good 
things eternal be never lacking, while to the father who succeeded 
him (Baithin), the teacher of his spiritual sons, the following 
(words) were particularly apposite, 'Come, my sons, hearken unto 
me. I shall teach you the fear of the Lord/ since, as the departing 
one desired, he was his successor not only in teaching but also in 
writing. 

"After writing the above verse and finishing the page, the saint 
enters the church for the vesper office preceding the Sunday ; which 
finished, he returned to his little room, and rested for the night on 
his couch, where for mattress he had a bare flag and for a pillow 
a stone, which at this day stands as a kind of a commemorative 
monument beside his tomb. And there sitting he gives his last 
mandates to his brethren, in the hearing of his servant only, saying, 
'These last words of mine I commend to you, O little children, that 
ye preserve a mutual charity with peace, and a charity not feigned 
among yourselves; and if ye observe to do this according to the 
example of the holy fathers, God, the comforter of the good, shall 
help you, and I, remaining with Him, shall make intercession for 
you, and not only the necessaries of this present life shall be suffi- 
ciently supplied you by Him, but also the reward of eternal good, 
prepared for the observers of things Divine, shall be rendered you/ 
Up to this point the last words of our venerable patron (when 

146 



Death of Columcille 



now) passing as it were from this wearisome pilgrimage to his 
heavenly country, have been briefly narrated. 

"After which, his joyful last hour gradually approaching, the 
saint was silent. Then soon after, when the struck bell resounded 
in the middle of the night, 1 quickly rising he goes to the church, 
and hastening more quickly than the others he enters alone, and 
with bent knees inclines beside the altar in prayer. His servant, 
Diarmuid, following more slowly, at the same moment beholds, 
from a distance, the whole church inside filled with angelic light 
round the saint: but as he approached the door this same light, 
which he had seen, quickly vanished: which light, a few others of 
the brethren, also standing at a distance, had seen. Diarmuid then 
entering the church calls aloud with a voice choked with tears, 
'Where art thou, Father?' And the lamps of the brethren not yet 
being brought, groping in the dark, he found the saint recumbent 
before the altar; raising him up a little, and sitting beside him, he 
placed the sacred head in his own bosom. And while this was 
happening a crowd of monks running up with the lights, and seeing 
their father dying, began to lament. And as we have learnt from 
some who were there present, the saint, his soul not yet departing, 
with eyes upraised, looked round on each side, with a countenance 
of wondrous joy and gladness, as though beholding the holy angels 
coming to greet him. Diarmuid then raises up the saint's right 
hand to bless the band of monks. But the venerable father himself, 
too, in so far as he was able, was moving his hand at the same time, 
so that he might appear to bless the brethren with the motion of 
his hand, what he could not do with his voice, during his soul's 
departure. And after thus signifying his sacred benediction, he 
straightway breathed forth his life. When it had gone forth from 
the tabernacle of his body, the countenance remained so long glow- 
ing and gladdened in a wonderful manner, by the angelic vision, 
that it appeared not that of a dead man but of a living one sleeping. 
In the meantime the whole church resounded with sorrowful lamen- 
tations." 

So went to his death the founder of the Scottish nation, 
the father of civilization and Christianity both in Scot- 
land and England, and after Caesar perhaps the most 
majestic being that has ever trod the isle of Britain. 

i The saint, as Reeves notes, had previously attended the vespertinalia 
Dominicae noctis missa, an office equivalent to the nocturnal vigil, and now 
at the turn of midnight the bell rings for matins, which were celebrated 
according to ancient custom a little before daybreak. 

147 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

* " — 

2. Illuminated Manuscripts and Latin Poems 

If Columcille was the author of both the Book of Kells 
and the Book of Durrow as was long believed the title 
of consummate artist must be added to the other charac- 
terizations that have been lavished upon him. 1 The 
famous copy of the Psalter known as the Cathach, 2 long 
the most valuable heirloom in that branch of Colum- 
cille's clan that issued in the Ua Domnaill family, Princes 
of Tyrconnail, is accepted as being his , handiwork and 
indeed as the very transcription from Firman's set of the 
Vulgate over which 3,000 warriors fell at Culdreimhne. 
Of the Latin poems attributed to Columcille and believed 
to be genuine wholly or in part three have come down 
to us. s They are the Altus, In te Christe and Noli 
Pater. The Altus is the most celebrated and was quoted 
in the ninth century by Rhabanus Maurus. It describes 
the Trinity, the angels, the creation of the world and the 
fall of man, the deluge, and the last judgment. The poem, 
which is a sort of early Paradise Lost, consists of twenty- 
two stanzas, each beginning in order with a letter of the 
alphabet. The first two lines run as follows : 

Altus prosator, vetustus dierum et ingenitus, 
Erat absque origine primordii et crepidine. 

1 Both these miracles of beauty are at Trinity College, Dublin. The colo- 
phon on the Book of Durrow bears the name "Columba." 

2 The Cathach or Battler, contained in a shrine made for it in the eleventh 
century by the order of Cathbar Ua Domnaill, was carried to the Continent 
in the seventeenth century by the exiled Domnaill Ua Domnaill. It was 
recovered in 1802 by Sir Niall Ua Domnaill and was opened by Sir "William 
Betham soon after. Within was found a mass of vellum hardened into a 
single lump, which, when the leaves were separated, was found to contain 
part of a Psalter written in Latin in a "neat, but hurried hand." Fifty 
leaves remained, containing from the 31st to the 106th Psalm, and an exam- 
ination of the text showed it to be part of the second revision of the Psalter 
by St. Jerome. 

3 They are contained in an eleventh century manuscript, the Liber Hym- 
norum. 

I48 



Death of Columcille 



The poem has been variously rendered into English, 
the following being a specimen : 

Ancient of Days; enthroned on high; 
The Father unbegotten He, 
Whom space containeth not nor time, 
Who was and is and aye shall be; 
And one-born Son and Holy Ghost, 
Who co-eternal glory share, 
One only God of Person Three, 
We praise, acknowledge and declare. 1 

Curious conceptions of the physical origins of clouds, 
rain and tides are given in the stanza beginning with the 
letter I : 

In three quarters of the sea 
Three mighty fountains hidden lie 
Whence rise through whirling water-spouts 
Rich-laden clouds that clothe the sky; 
On winds from out his treasure House 
They speed to swell bud, vine and grain; 
While the sea-shallows emptied wait 
Until the tides return again. 

3. By the Time of Adamnan 

By the time of Adamnan (624-704), the Christianiza- 
tion of Scotland had been pretty well completed, tho 
a century and a half had yet to pass before its thorough 
Hibernicization. Adamnan became ninth abbot of Iona 
and was perhaps after Columcille the greatest of that 
distinguished and enduring line. His celebrity as a 
literary man in a period when there was very little 
'literature in Europe outside of Ireland and its intel- 
lectual dependencies has overshadowed his accomplish- 
ments in politics, in diplomacy and in the Church. He 
is known and will be known through the ages as primarily 

lBy the Rev. Anthony Mitchell. An excellent translation is also given 
by Alfred Percival Graves in the Contemporary Review (London), Sept., 1920. 

149 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

the biographer of St. Columcille, yet this was a work per- 
formed during the intermittent leisure hours of a life 
filled with action. Adamnan belonged to Columcille's 
own family and was born twenty-seven years after the 
death of his great kinsman. Adamnan, like Columcille, 
whose life became a model to the youth of Erin, studied 
in a number of Ireland's great seats of learning, then in 
the meridian of their fame and influence, and in a bardic 
composition embodying a memoir of the High Monarch 
Finnachta there is given a story of his student days which 
is valuable for the glimpse it gives into the Irish university 
life of the period. 

Finnachta, although of the blood royal, was in his youth 
quite poor. He had a house and wife but only one ox 
and one cow. Now the king of Feara Ross strayed to the 
neighborhood of Finnachta's house; and his wife and a 
crowd of retainers were with him. Finnachta struck 
the ox on the head and the cow on the head and feasted 
all the king's people sumptuously, so that no one was 
hungry. Then the king and queen of Feara Ross gave 
large herds of cattle to the generous Finnachta and made 
him a great man. Shortly after this, Finnachta, not 
yet king, was coming with a large troop of horse to 
his sister's house, and as they rode along they overtook 
Adamnan, then a student, traveling the same road with 
a vessel full of milk on his back. Anxious to get out of 
the way Adamnan stumbled and fell, spilling all the 
milk and breaking the jar to pieces. He ran after the 
cavalcade and said: "O good man, I have reason to be 
sad, for there are three good students in one house and 
they have us as two messengers — for there is always one 
going about seeking food for the five, and it came to my 
turn to-day. The gathering I made is scattered and, 

150 



Death of Columcille 



what I grieve for far more, the borrowed vessel has 
been broken and I have no means to pay for it." Then 
Finnachta declared he would make it alright and he kept 
his word. He not only paid for the vessel but he brought 
the scholars to his own house and their teacher along 
with them ; he fitted up the ale-house for their reception 
and gave them such abounding good cheer that the pro- 
fessor, the annals say, declared Finnachta would one 
day become king of Ireland, "and Adamnan shall be the 
head of the wisdom of Erin, and shall become soul's 
friend or confessor to the king." 

Adamnan became abbot of Iona in 679 when he was 
fifty-five, five years after Finnachta became king of Ire- 
land. The monarch had never lost sight of the boy with 
the jar, whose bearing had indicated a youth of promise. 
Adamnan was invited to the court and was ultimately 
made the king's spiritual adviser or anamchara. 

The friendship that united Adamnan and King Fin- 
nachta was duplicated in the intimacy between Adamnan 
and Aldfrid, king of Northumbria, 1 who had an Irish 
mother and who was educated in Ireland and was at one 
time apparently a schoolfellow or pupil of Adamnan. 
The esteem in which he was held by the two kings bore 
fruit on the occasions on which he acted as ambassador 
between them. One of these diplomatic missions under- 
taken by Adamnan brings into relief the only occasion 
in Anglo-Saxon history, after the mission of Aidan, on 
which an act of hostility was perpetrated by the English 
against the nation that had been to them so remarkable 
a benefactor. This was an attack on Meath by Ecgfrith, 
the predecessor, brother and enemy of Aldfrid, whose 
presence in Ireland appears to have been its inspiring 

1 He talks of visits to "my friend, King Aldfrid, in Saxonia" (V. Columbae, 
I, XLVII). 

151 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

motive, and the carrying away of a number of prisoners. 
In 686, following the accession of Aldfrid, Adamnan 
undertook at the instance of Finnachta a mission to 
Northumbria and brought back to Ireland sixty cap- 
tives. 

Two years later he again visited Aldfrid's court in 
Northumbria, and also, it appears, visited the monasteries 
of Wearmouth and Jarrow. Bede appears to have known 
him well and greatly reverenced him. On the occasions of 
his visits to England a great plague, to which Bede 
movingly alludes, was ravishing the country, but the Irish 
and the Picts appear to have been remarkably spared 
by it. Adamnan attributes his own immunity and that 
of his countrymen to the intercession of Columcille, but 
the personal habits induced by a superior civilization 
doubtless played their part. 

4. The Hibernicizing of North Britain 

In 692 Adamnan resided in Ireland and he was there 
again in 697 — it was round the earlier of these two dates 
that he seems to have composed the major part of the life 
of Columcille. He seems to have been the influential 
figure at the Parliament of Tara held in 697 and caused 
to be reenacted a law exempting women from fighting, 
which Columcille had caused to be passed, but which 
the passions of the time had disregarded. From that 
date the edict was strictly enforced and came to be known 
as the Lex Adamnani or Cain Adhemhnain. It appears 
to have been at this Parliament that the questions in 
respect to the observance of Easter, which then agitated 
so many minds, were discussed and that the Roman views 
and usages, which Adamnan greatly favored, were gen- 
erally adopted, though as early as 634 they began to be 

152 



Death of Columcille 



the vogue over a great part of Ireland. Adamnan seems 
to have dwelt in Ireland from 697 to 701 ; and Bede 
observes that he crossed from Ireland to lona the summer 
before he died; and alluding to the variance between him- 
self and his brethren at lona, who could not be induced 
to forsake the observances sanctioned by the devotion of 
Columcille, adds: "For it came to pass that before the 
next year came round he departed this life: the Divine 
Goodness so ordering it that, as he was a man most earnest 
for peace and unity, he should be taken away to ever- 
lasting life before the return of the season of Easter he 
should be obliged to differ still more seriously from those 
who were unwilling to follow him in the way of truth." 
Adamnan, though, like Columcille, of noble, and even 
of royal birth, led a life of solid hard work, not disdain- 
ing, any more than his great predecessor, to assist the 
brethren in the manual labor of building, rowing, and 
dragging overland ships laden with the hewn pine and 
oak needed in their operations. In spite of this, his 
literary work must have been extraordinarily volu- 
minous. 1 Latin was his favorite medium of expression, 
and he seems to have had a good working knowledge of 
Greek and Hebrew. His "De Locis Sanctis," from which 
Bede quotes, and which has happily been preserved, is 
the earliest account coming from modern Christian 
Europe of the condition of Eastern lands and the cradle 
of Christianity. 2 It was compiled from the conversation 

1 In the prologue to his "De Locis Sanctis" he tells us how he worked, 
writing the first rough drafts of his compositions on waxed tablets (tabulae 
ceratae) and later transferring the finished copy to the membranes. Colum- 
cille and his companions, when traveling, also carried such tablets with them 
for the purpose of making notes. 

2 The reticences of Adamnan are as remarkable as what he says. He 
has, for example, in his extant works no reference to the work of the Irish 
missionaries in England, though the chief of them, Aidan, Finan, Colman and 
the others, were among the brethren of lona in his time. Never was there 
a great work done in the world with less trumpeting on the part of those 
who did it. Were it not for foreign testimony we would know very little 
of the work of medieval Irishmen abroad, and indeed we know of only a 
very small part of it. 

153 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

of Arculf, a Gallic bishop who visited Iona after he had 
been in Palestine, and Adamnan presented a copy of the 
work to King Aldfrid. Adamnan is credited with a life 
of St. Patrick as well as with poems reproduced by 
Tighernach, the Annals of the Four Masters, and the Book 
of Lecain. He is said to have written a history of the 
Irish nation up to his own times and an Epitome of the 
Irish Laws of Metre. In the Liber Hymnorum there is 
a poem in Gaelic called Adamnan's Prayer. In the 
Leaber na h'Uidhre or Book of the Dun Cow is the 
famous Fis Adhamhnain or Vision of Adamnan attributed 
to him, a truly remarkable precursor of Dante's Divina 
Commedia, in which the "high scholar of the Western 
World" visits heaven and hell. His fame endured in a 
degree only inferior to Columcille's. Contemporaries 
like Coelfrid offered their tributes to his character and 
learning. Bede calls him "a good and wise man, most 
nobly versed in the science of the Scriptures." 1 While 
Alcuin classes him with Columbanus and other dis- 
tinguished Irishmen as "renowned brothers, masters both 
of manners and of life." 2 

A line of forty-nine abbots, of whom Adamnan was the 
ninth, succeeded Columcille at Iona, ending with Giol- 
lacrist who died c. 1202. 3 In course of time the 
spiritual authority of Iona passed eastward with the suc- 
cess of Irish arms to the more central seat of government 
which the Irish kings of Scotland established at Dunkeld. 
The Danish descents on Iona in the ninth century and 

1 "Vir bonus et sapiens, et scientia scriptarum nobilissime instructus." 

2 "Patricius, Charanus, Scottorum gloria gentis, 

Atque Columbanus, Congallus, Adamnanus atque, 
Praeclari fratres, morum vitaeque magistri. 

Hie pietas precibus horum nos adjuvet omnes." — (Migne, L.XXXVIII, 
col. 777.) 

3 Reeves, Life of St. Columba, by Adamnan (pp. 269-413), gives a list of 
the forty-nine abbots with a brief biography of each and a chronicle, compiled 
from the Irish annals, of the chief events under the encumbency of each. 

154 



Death of Columcille 



the rise of Kells in Ireland caused a diversion in the 
administration of the Columbian brotherhood, and when 
soon after the Pictish nation yielded to Irish rule and 
Kenneth mac Alpin, c. 847, transferred the sovereignty 
to the eastern side of Scotland, Dunkeld became the 
spiritual and political capital of the united kingdom of 
the Irish and the Picts. From that time Iona continued 
to decline 1 and Dunkeld, which is numbered among the 
fifty-three known foundations of Columcille and his dis- 
ciples in Scotland, took its place as the capital and center 
of the national life. 

Of the multitude of other men — missionaries and kings, 
soldiers, statesmen and scholars — who aided, supple- 
mented and succeeded Columcille in the work not merely 
of Christianizing but of colonizing and Hibernicizing 
Scotland, little can here be said. There were noble figures 
among them — Modan in Stirling; Drostan in Aberdour; 
Molurg in Lismore; Ciaran in Kintyre; Mun in Argyle; 
Buite in Pictland; Moohar on the eastern coasts; Fergus 
in Caithness and Buchan with Maelrubha of Skye and 
the other apostles of the Western Isles — these are but 
leading names in a great host that Ireland gave to Scot- 
land. There were none of them that were not wholly 
Irish. The missionaries of civilization in other countries 
have been of diverse nationalities. In England they were 
Irish, Roman, and Greek. In France they were Greek, 
Roman, Hebrew, and Irish. Scotland had no saint, no 

1 It remained the favored burial place of the kings of Scotland, as Shake- 
speare evidences 1 : 

"Ross: Where's Duncan's body? 
"Macduff: Carried to Colmekill (Iona) 

The sacred storehouse of his predecessors 

And guardian of their bones." 
"Ross: That now 

Sweno, the Norway's king, craves composition; 

Nor would we deign him burial of his men 

Till he disbursed at Saint Colme's Inch 

Ten thousand dollars to our general use." — (Macbeth, Acts I and II.) 

155 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

prophet, no king, no leader among the people, who was 
not an Irishman. Irish speech and Irish civilization were 
to put the seal of Irish authority so completely on Scot- 
land that even in modern eyes it remains in many respects 
more Gaelic and Irish than the inland provinces of the 
motherland. To other lands medieval Irishmen brought 
Christianity and culture. To Scotland they brought the 
whole Gaedhaeltacht, and, dividing Britain almost into 
halves, added the northern portion as a fifth Irish province 
to the five other provinces of Ireland, and called the whole 
Scotia. 1 

i See appendix B. p. 314, for additional details concerning the Irish king- 
dom of Scotland. 



156 




CHAPTER XIII 
IRISH PRINCIPALITY IN WALES 

i. Gael and Sassenach in Britain. 2. Irish Clans in Britain. 3. Irish 
Military Expeditions Abroad. 4. Irish Kings in Britain. 5. Wales 
Medieval Irish Colony. 

i. Gael and Sassenach in Britain 

"HILE Irishmen in North Britain were bending 
their energies to the work of conquering, coloniz- 
ing and civilizing Caledonia, another conquest 
was going forward, chiefly under the direction of Irishmen 
of the center and south, which has received less attention 
from historians. Had there been no Anglo-Jute-Saxon 
conquest of Great Britain these two Irish conquests would 
in all likelihood have been decisive of the future of the 
island. They would have issued in a British Isles almost 
entirely Irish, with the Irish tongue the prevalent speech 
from Kerry to Lincoln and from the Orkneys to the Isle 
of Wight, and with the equivalent of what is now Wales 
pushed eastwards and southwards and confined to a jut- 
ting headland between the estuary of the Thames and the 
Wash, or more probably absorbed in the kindred Irish 
population. But there was an Anglo-Jute-Saxon invasion, 
so that the Gael and the Sassenach met on the broad moors 
of Britannia and. fought their destiny out. The issue lay 
for centuries in doubt, but eventually the Sassenach proved 
the stronger, not in individual prowess indeed, for the 
Irishman is superior in physique to the Englishman, 1 but 
primarily then as later because the Gael had only the 

1 The Irish are probably the strongest, tallest, and most athletic race on 
earth, and their record in the world of sport seems to make this abundantly 
clear. But see "The Irish People; Their Height, Form and Strength," by 
F. E. Hogan (Dublin, 1899). Irish hatters stock larger sizes than hatters in 
England. The English made a remarkably poor comparative showing in the 
recent war measurements. 

157 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

small island of Hibernia behind him, while the Sassenach 
drew his strength from the teeming population of northern 
Europe. 

Thus Nennius says the invaders were constantly 
being reinforced — "the more the Saxons were vanquished 
the more they sought for new supplies of Saxons from 
Germany. Kings, commanders, and military bands were 
invited over from almost every province, and this practice 
they continued till the reign of Ida." A statement by 
Bede implies that practically the entire Anglic people 
emigrated from the Continent en masse — men, women 
and children — no one being left to cultivate the land, for, 
he says, the land "which is called Angulus" remained a 
desert till the day in which he wrote. And then there 
was another reason and a potent one. It was at this period 
that the Gaels of Ireland were turning their backs on the 
mirage of military glory and were preparing to spend 
themselves in the nobler engagement against the forces 
of ignorance and heathenism,, From the time of Patrick 
there is no record of any raiding expedition going forth 
from the Gaedhaltacht. The military organization of 
the Fiana, whose exploits are celebrated in the poems of 
Oisin, still continued to exist, but it gradually disappeared, 
and the great military encampments, like Tara, Aileach 
and Cruachain, in which the Irish kings were accustomed 
to dwell surrounded by permanent fighting forces, lost 
their military character around the seventh century. 1 

iKells, originally a military stronghold, later the head of the Colombian 
foundations, is an example, as the dialog between Columcille and the prophet 
Becc indicates: 

"O Becc, tell thou to me 
Kells, the wide, pure grassed, 
Whether clerics (will) dwell in it, 
"Whether warriors (will) abandon it?" 
So Becc said: 

"Trains who are amidst it 
Shall sing praises of the Lord's Son; 
Its warriors shall depart from its threshold; 

There will be a time when it will be secure." — (Leabar Breac, p. 32 
a-b; Anecdota Oxoniensia, Ser. 5, p. 306.) 

158 



Irish Principality in Wales 



In this long contest nothing appears more remarkable 
than the lack of grit in the Britons themselves. Even the 
simple-minded English dwell on it: "They then sent to 
Angel, bade them send greater help, and bade them to 
say the Brito-Welsh's nothingness and the land's ex- 
cellencies." 1 Three centuries of Roman dominance had 
deprived the Briton, originally an excellent fighting man, 
of his military virtue. The main fight centered around 
the ambitions of the Gael and the Sassenach, and the 
"Brito-Welshman" appears as little better than a pawn 
in a game between stronger rivals. The chief Bri to- 
Welsh resource appears to have been flight. Thus from 
460 to 550 a continual stream of British fugitives crossed 
over from Britain to Armorica and there established a 
smaller Britain that has endured to this day. 2 

The Saxons came to England according to the tradi- 
tional account, invited to aid the Briton against the Gael 
and Pict by Vortigern, whom some consider to have been 
an Irish prince ruling the Britons. 3 Three distinct wars 
of conquest thus came to be waged simultaneously in the 
island. The Irishmen of the north were engaged in re- 
ducing Caledonia, a conquest subsequently completed by 
them. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were successfully 
invading Britain from the east. And Irish tribes, chiefly 
of Munster stock, were taking possession of Britannia 
Secunda and part of Britannia Prima, establishing a 
colony or dependency that included present Wales as well 
as Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. This last conquest and 
settlement have, as I have said, received relatively small 
attention from historians, chiefly because their visible 

1 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 

2 Great Britain is so called in contradistinction to this smaller Britain 
(now called Brittany) in France. It is to be noted that the English have 
no right to the name Briton, which belongs to the former Celts of the 
country, now represented by the "Welsh. 

3 Rhys, in "The "Welsh People," gives reasons for this view. 

159 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

effects have not endured to our day. Roughly the 
dominion of the Gael in West Britain or Wales lasted 
for four centuries — from the third to the seventh or eighth, 
during the latter part of which period it passed from 
being an Irish-speaking to being a Welsh-speaking 
country. 

2. Irish Clans in Britain 

Zeuss 1 demonstrated that the Irish and Welsh languages 
were one in their origin ; that their divergence began only 
a few centuries before the Roman period ; that the differ- 
ence between them was very small when Caesar landed in 
Britain — so small that an old Hibernian was still under- 
stood there; and that both nations, Irish and British, 
were identical with the Celtae or Galli of the Continent — 
namely those of Gaul, Spain, Lombardy and the Alpine 
countries — thus asserting the intrinsic unity of the Celtic 
family. By the seventh and eighth centuries of our era, 
however, the Irish and "Brito-Welsh" languages had 
diverged very considerably, and that divergence has con- 
tinued and increased to the present time. The Irish in 
Wales, divided from the homeland by a broad and 
turbulent sea, became absorbed in the kindred British 
population around them or returned to Ireland. Mean- 
while the Irish in North Britain, in unceasing close con- 
tact with the motherland, carried their arms, culture and 
speech over all Caledonia or Scotland and even into 
northern England. So French or English speech did not 
even begin to make headway among the Irish Scots of 
Caledonia till the thirteenth or fourteenth century, a 
period when Norman-French was the prevailing language 
throughout England, except among the lower orders. 

i In his "Grammatica Celtica," published in 1854. 

160 



Irish Principality in Wales 



The conquest of North Britain or Caledonia had been 
achieved by the Irishmen of Ulster, the kinsmen of the 
princely clans of the O'Donels and O'Neills. The con- 
quest of North Wales appears likewise to have been 
achieved by the Ultonians. South Britain, including 
south Wales and the Cornish peninsula, appear to have 
become Irish through the efforts of the men of Munster. 
During the historic period there appears to have been no 
fundamental difference in the Irish nation. All the 
governing clans, septs and races, equivalents of the Roman 
gens, point to a common origin, all are Irish and Gaelic. 
The Irish carried their pedigree to an incredible an- 
tiquity. The immediate eponym of the race was Galamh, 
from Gal, valor, a name which might be exprest by the 
Latin miles, a knight, whence came the names Milesius 
and Milesian. All the Milesian families traced their 
names to Galamh or Milesius. From three of the sons 
of Milesius, namely, Heber, Ir and Heremon, who in- 
vaded Ireland, are descended all the Milesian Irish of 
Ireland and Scotland, and the reputed descent from these 
sons colors all Irish history. From Heber, the eldest 
brother, the provincial kings of Munster (of whom thirty- 
eight were high monarchs of Ireland) and most of the 
noble families of Munster were descended. From Ir, 
the second brother, all the provincial kings of Ulster (of 
whom twenty-six were high monarchs of Ireland) and 
all the old and noble families of Ulster, and many noble 
families in Leinster, Munster and Connaught, derive 
their pedigrees. 

From Heremon, the youngest of the three brothers, and 
the chief of them from the number and distinction of his 
descendants, according to Irish genealogical compila- 
tions, were descended one hundred and fourteen monarchs 

12 l6 ' 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

of Ireland, the provincial kings and Heremonian nobility 
and gentry of Leinster, Connaught, Meath, Orgiall, 
Tirowen, Tyrconnell, and Clan-na-boy, the three kings 
of Dalriada, and all the kings of Scotland from Fergus 
Mor, son of Earca, down to the Stuarts. The issue of 
Ithe is not accounted among the Milesian Irish or Clan- 
na-Mile as being descended not from Milesius but from 
his uncle Ithe, of whose posterity there were also some 
monarchs of Ireland and many provincial or half- 
provincial kings of Munster. That country upon its 
first division was allocated to the sons of Heber and to 
Lughaidh, son of Ithe, whose posterity continued there 
accordingly. 1 

The points to be dwelt on are that the Munster Irish 
are in the main the reputed descendants of Heber, as 
distinguished from the reputed descendants of the other 
two sons of Milesius, Ir and Heremon, in most of the 
rest of Ireland, and that these Munster Irish had certain 
characteristics that distinguished them. They were 
among the first to receive the Christian faith before St. 
Patrick. Roman-British missionaries were among them, 
it would appear, at the beginning of the third century. 2 

1 The pedigrees of the old Irish families that have been saved from the 
wreck of ages are among the most curious and valuable historic records in 
our possession. Their accuracy and genuineness have been fully demonstrated 
as far as it has been possible to trace and test them, which appears to be 
where they all converge round the fourth century — beyond that is uncertainty. 
There is no country in Europe, with the exception of Italy perhaps, that 
has anything that in any way approaches them. There are families in Ireland 
that can trace their pedigrees back to a point farther in history than the 
whole English nation. Irish pedigrees are one of the indisputable evidences 
of ancient Irish culture, for it is inconceivable that a family could cherish 
and preserve its family records from generation to generation, as the Irish 
families and clans are shown to have done, without a considerable degree 
of social self-consciousness and mental cultivation. The accumulation of 
those that have been preserved is extraordinary. The best handbook on the 
subject is O'Harts' "Irish Pedigrees" (2 vols.); Douglas Hyde has an inter- 
esting chapter on them in his "Literary History"; while Eoin MacNeill 
illuminates their use as historic signposts in a series of articles in the 
New Ireland Review (1904-5). 

2 See Zimmer, Pelagius in Ireland (Berlin). 

l62 



Irish Principality in Wales 



The Ogham and other stone inscriptions found in Ireland 
are far more numerous among them than elsewhere. 
Distinguishing marks such as these have enabled investi- 
gators to differentiate between the Irish clans that peopled 
West Britain, and the conclusion has been that the 
Cornish peninsula and South Wales were in the hands 
of the Munster men, while North Wales and Scotland 
went to the more northerly Irish people. 

3. Irish Military Expeditions Abroad 

The foreign expeditions from Ireland coming within 
the historic period may be said to begin with the reign 
of the celebrated Cormac, son of Art and grandson of 
Conn of the Hundred Battles — who reigned over Ireland 
for forty years (226-266 A. D.) , for the Annals of the Four 
Masters, quoting the Annals of Tighernach, tell us that 
in the year 240 A. D. Cormac, the high king, sailed across 
the high sea and obtained the sovereignty of Alba 
(Britain). 

Frequent accounts, which Roman writers amplify, are 
given in the legends of the Irish kings and in Irish litera- 
ture generally, of warlike expeditions from Ireland to 
Alba and Gaul and of settlements and intermarriages in 
those countries. The Glossary of Cormac, mac 1 Culinan, 
a production of the ninth century, tells us that "great 
was the power of the Gael over Britain, and they con- 
tinued in this power till long after the coming of Patrick" 
and that "Crimthann Mor (or Criffan the Great), who 
reigned for thirteen years, was king over Ireland and 
Britain to the British Channel." 2 Keating tells us that 

1 "Mac" means son or descendant; "Ua" (O) means grandson or descendant; 
"Ni" means granddaughter or descendant. Where "mac," as in this case, is 
used before the establishment of surnames (tenth and eleventh centuries) 
the initial letter is in lower case preceded by a comma. 

2 Safias Chormaic, ninth century, edited, Stokes, 1868. 

163 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 



it was this Crimthann who gained victories and ex- 
tended his sway over Alba, Britain and Gaul, as the 
Shanachie tells us in the following rann: 

"Crimthann, son of Fidach, ruled 
The Alban and the Irish lands, 
Beyond the clear blue seas he quelled 
The British and the Gallic might." * 

It was during the reigns of Eochaidh Muighmeadhoin 
(358-366), of Crimthann Mor (366-379), and of'Niall 
of the Nine Hostages (379-405), that the Irish invasion 
and conquest of a large portion of Britain became con- 
solidated. More than one of the Irish kings assumed 
the title of King of Alba (Britain) ; and of one of them, 
Miurchartach, son of Earca, who died iir 533, it is re- 
ported that, in addition to his Irish titles, he was styled 
king of the Britons, Franks and Saxons. 2 

Readers of history are familiar with the Roman 
accounts of the blows dealt the empire in Britain by the 
Picts and the Irish Scots. The ancient chroniclers are 
generally assumed to represent that the Irish military 
taking part in these invasions all came, like the Picts, 
from the north. But Ammianus Marcellinus, "an old 
soldier and a Greek" as he calls himself, writing 380-390, 
expressly states that the Picts and the Irish arrived by 
different ways (per diversa vagantes) . Bede has a passage 
to a similar effect, indicating that the Irish naval forces 
invaded Britain from the west, that is directly from 
Ireland, for the Irish or Scoti did not then inhabit present 
Scotland in any great number. 

The invasion was organized and persistent. At the 
year 360 we find one of the earliest Roman references to 
the Irish "Scoti" as cooperating with the Picts in raids 

1 Forus Feasa na h-Eireann (History of Ireland). 

2 Irish Nennius, pub. of I. A. S., 180. 

164 



Irish Principality in Wales 



on the regions of the northern stations, and as they were 
accused of having by so acting broken the peace that had 
been agreed upon there had evidently been earlier fight- 
ing: "The affairs of Britain became troubled in conse- 
quence of the incursions of the Picts and Irish, who, 
breaking the peace (nupta quiete condicta) to which they 
had agreed were plundering the districts on their borders, 
and keeping in constant alarm the provinces (i. e., of 
Britain) exhausted by former disasters. Caesar (Julian 
the Apostate, 360-363), proclaimed emperor at Paris, 
having his mind divided by various cares, feared to go to 
the aid of his subjects across the Channel (as we have 
related Constans to have done) lest he should leave the 
Gauls without a governor, while the Alemanni were still 
full of fierce, warlike intentions." 1 

Four years later the same writer tells us the "Picts, 
Irish, Saxons and Attacotti prest the Britains with 
incessant invasions." And again at 368 he says: "Valen- 
tinian (the emperor) having left Amiens and being on 
his way to Treves, then the capital of the western pre- 
fecture, received the disastrous intelligence that Britain 
was reduced by the ravages of the united barbarians to 
the lowest extremity of distress, that Nectarides, the count 
of the sea coast, had been slain in battle, and that the 
commander Fultofondes had been taken prisoner by the 
enemy in an ambuscade. Jovinus applied for the aid of 
a powerful army. Last of all, on account of the many 
formidable reports, Theodosius (the elder) was ap- 
pointed to proceed to Britain and ordered to make great 
haste. At that time the Picts, the Attacotti, a very war- 
like people, and the Irish were all roving over different 
parts of the country and committing great ravages." In 

1 Ammianus Marcellinus, XX, I. 

165 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

the battle that immediately followed, Theodosius drove 
back the Irish and the Picts from the city "which was 
anciently called Lugdun (Celt, the fort of Lug) 
(London), but is now known as Augusta." Then "he 
(Theodosius) established stations and outposts on the 
frontier and he so completely covered the province which 
had yielded subjection to the enemy that it was again 
brought under its legitimate rule and by the desire of the 
emperor called Valentia," that is the part above Hadrian's 
wall. 

Claudian, the Alexandrian poet, adds to this by telling 
us that Theodosius "followed the Irishman with wan- 
dering sword and clove the waters of the northern ocean 
with his daring oars," treading "the sands of both the 
tidal seas," so that "Icy Ireland weeps for the heaps of 
Irish slain." 1 

4. Irish Kings in Britain 
Among the Irish kings daring enough to attack the 
Roman armies in their own strongholds the most formid- 
able appears to have been Niall of the Nine Hostages 
(d. 405), who in his last years practically brought the 
greater part of Britain under Irish rule. The Romans 
never entirely conquered Britannia Secunda, as what is 

1 Two passages in Claudian illustrate the campaigns of Theodosius, 368, 
369. In the Panegyric on the Third Consulship of Honorius (A. D. 395) we 
read, vv, 54-6: 

Ille leues Mauros nee falso nomine Pictos 

Edomuit Scottumque uago mucrone secutus 

Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus undas, 
and in the Panegyric on the Fourth Consulship (A. D. 397) vv, 28 seq.: 
debellatorque Britanni 

Litoris ac pariter Boreae uastator et Austri. 

Quid rigor aeternus, caeli quid frigora prosunt 

Ignotumque f return? maduerunt Saxone fuso 

Orcades; incaluit Picorum sanguine Thyle; 

Scottorum cumulos fleuit glacialis Hiuerne. 
The first of these passages suggests that Theodosius pursued the Irish 
across the sea, or at least made a naval demonstration in the Irish Channel, 
and this is perhaps supported by a passage in Pacatus, Panegyric, C. 5: at- 
tritan pedestribus praeliis Britanniam referam? Saxo consumptus bellis 
naualibus offeretur redactum ad paludes suas Scotum loquar? 

166 



Irish Principality in Wales 



now Wales was then called, 1 and strong legionary stations 
at Chester, the Roman Deva, and at Caerleon, the Roman 
Isca Silurum, were established by them as barriers against 
the Irish invaders. 

Against King Niall in the closing years of the fourth 
century Rome sent, in the person of Flavius Stilicho, her 
ablest general. The organized strength of the Irish 
attacks, on the land and on the sea, is mirrored in the 
glowing words of Claudian, who, speaking in the person 
of Britannia, says of Stilicho: "By him was I protected 
when the Irishman moved all Ireland against me and 
the sea foamed under his hostile oars." 2 

From another of the poet's eulogies it appears that the 
fame of the Roman legion, which had guarded the 
frontiers of Britain against the invading Irish and Picts, 
procured for it the distinction of being one of the bodies 
summoned to the banner of Stilicho when the Goths 
threatened Rome: "There arrived also the legion spread 
out over the furthermost Britons, which bridles the fierce 
Irishman and examines on the dying Pict the hideous 
pictures punctured by the steel." 3 

With the withdrawal of the Roman forces from Britain 
at the beginning of the fifth century the Irish appear to 
have extended their sway over the whole of what is now 

i No legion appears in the western district of Britain in the Notitia Dig- 
nitatum, which represents the state of civil and. military services in the 
Empire in the first years of the fifth century. 

2 Totam cum Scotus Iernem movit, 
Et infesto spumavit remige Tethys. 
Illius effectum curis ne tela timerem 
Scottica ne Pictum tremerem, ne litore toto. 

Prospicerem dubiis uenturum Saxona uentis. (De Consulatu Stilichonis, 

ii, 247 seq., composed A. D. 399.) 

St. Patrick himself appears to have been one of the captives of NialFs 

fleets operating - in the mouth of the Severn, for concerning this very period 

he writes in his "Confession": "I was about sixteen years of age when I 

was brought captive into Ireland with many thousand persons." 

3 Venit et extremis legio praetenta Britannia, 
Quae Scoto dat froena traci, ferroque notatas 

Perlegit examines Picto moriente flguras. (De Bello Gothico* 416-8.) 



167 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

England. "The barbarians drive us into the sea, the sea 
throws us back upon the barbarians" is the purport of one 
of the "Groans of the Britons" as those groans were directed 
towards Aetius and Rome. Gildas, writing in the first 
half of the sixth century, says that the Irish "wafted both 
by the strength of oarsmen and the blowing wind break 
through the boundaries and spread slaughter on every 
side, and like mowers cutting down the ripe corn, they cut 
up, tread under foot, and overrun the whole country." 1 

During the reign of King Dathi (405-428) , the nephew 
of Niall of the Nine Hostages and his immediate successor 
on the throne of Ireland, Irish forces penetrated beyond 
Britain into Gaul, either as the opponents or the allies 2 
of the Romans. King Dathi was himself killed in the 
region of the Alps, whither he appears to have gone for 
the purpose, among other things, of avenging the death 
of his uncle, Niall, who had been killed on the banks of 
Loire. 3 Dathi was carried by his legionaries back to Ire- 
land and was buried in the royal cemetery at Rath 
Croghan, where the great red monumental pillar stone, 
raised according to tradition above his remains, still defies 
the waste of ages. 

"And there was buried 
Dathi, the last renowned high-king who reigned 
Ere Faith came to Erin; he at warfare 
In far-off Latin lands had burned the home 
Of a most holy hermit and had died, 
Slain by God's lightning on the Alps." 4 

iDe Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, Migne, Pat. Lat., L.XIX, col. 329; 
Mon. Germ. Hist., Auct. Antiquiss., 13. 

2 S. Hieronymi Epist. 11. adv. Jovin and context. St. Jerome, writing 1 
from Treves, is voucher for the existence of an Irish legion there. 

3 The book of Lecain says of the monarch that after fighting many battles 
in Eire and Alba "Dathi went with the men of Eire to Leatha (i. e., Letavia 
or Brittany) until he reached the Alps to avenge the death of Niall." For 
the legend of the Slaying of Niall of the Nine Hostages (Oruin Neill Noi- 
giallaig) see the version edited by Prof. Kuno Meyer (in Otia Merseiana, ii, 
84 seq.) 

4 The Tain, Epil. (Writing of the Tain), translation by Hutton, p. 448. 
See the poem of Torna-Eices on the famous men and women, who lay at 
Rath Croghan, published by de Jubainville in Revue Celtique, 17, 280, seq. 
A reproduction of Dathi's grave and pillar stone is given in Proceedings, Roy. 
Irish Acad., 1879, p. 117. 

168 



Irish Principality in Wales 



Gildas talks of the Britons eventually overthrowing the 
Irish enemies "who had for so many years been living 
in their country," by which he means not Wales but 
Britain. However, it is certain that the Irish formed a 
still strong military and colonizing power in Britain in 
the days of Gildas. The historian of the Britons says 
that after the departure of Maximus and his death in 
the year 388 at Aquileia, Britain "utterly ignorant as she 
was of the art of war groaned in amazement for many 
years under the cruelty of two foreign nations — the Irish 
from the northwest, and the Picts from the north." From 
other passages it would really seem as if the Romans suc- 
ceeded in driving the Irish over the Mare Hibernicum 
on some occasions: "So did our illustrious defenders (the 
Romans) vigorously drive the enemies' band beyond the 
sea, if any could so escape them ; for it was beyond those 
same seas that they transported, year after year, the 
plunder which they had gained, no one daring to resist 
them." 

Their departure was, however, only for a brief space. 
When the Romans had gone "they hastily land again 
from their boats in which they had been carried beyond 
the Cichican valley" (Irish Sea). "Moreover having 
heard of the departure of our friends and their resolution 
never to return, they seized with greater boldness than 
before on all the country towards the extreme north as 
far as the wall." 1 

From 407, when the tyrant Constantine crossed with 
the Roman armies to Gaul, to 446 (the third consulship of 
Aetius) Irish power seems to have been consolidating over 
all Britain. It appears to have reached its high-water 
mark round the middle of the fifth century. As it receded 

iDe Excidio Britanniae, Liber Querulus, Migne, Pat. Lat., LXIX, cols. 
329-92; Monumenta Germ. Hist, Auct. Antiquiss., 13. 

169 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 



in the south before the combination of Briton and Saxon, 
it took a wider sweep in what is now Scotland, completely 
conquering and incorporating it within the empire of the 
Gael. 

5. Wales Medieval Irish Colony 

And now with regard to the permanent results of these 
Irish expeditions and what remained of the Irish occupa- 
tion of Britain as the Angles and Saxons overran the 
country. 

There remained two distinct settlements of the Irish 
in Britannia Secunda or Wales: (1) of the Munster 
tribes in South Wales, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall; 
and (2) of other Irish in the Isle of Man, Anglesey and 
other parts of Gwynedd or North Wales. 

Early writers pointed to a Gaelic element in the topo- 
graphical nomenclature of West Britain and concluded 
that the country was once occupied by Irish people, 
whence they were supposed to have been driven into 
Ireland by the advancing Britons or Cymri, as they came 
later to be called, and as the Welsh call themselves in the 
Welsh tongue. This was the natural and reasonable con- 
clusion at the time, but our present knowledge compels 
us to adopt a different view, namely, that, without prej- 
udice to the existence at an anterior period of Irish tribes 
in West Britain, the numerous traces of Gaelic names 
found there are derived from the Irish invasions and 
occupations in the Roman period which I have just been 
describing. 

The Rev. W. Basil Jones, bishop of St. David's, sum- 
ming up his researches on the subject in his "Vestiges of 
the Gael in Gwynedd" (Ndrth Wales), came to the con- 
clusion that the Irish occupied the whole of Anglesey, 

1^0 



Irish Principality in Wales 



Carnarvon, Merioneth, and Cardigan, with a portion at 
least of Denbighshire, Montgomeryshire and Radnor- 
shire, and that the same clans that occupied Anglesey and 
Gwynedd also occupied the Isle of Man, which, as is well 
known, was an Irish possession before the Norman in- 
vasion. 

Dr. Jones's work was brought out in 185 1 and in it he 
showed that Irishmen were in possession of North Wales 
at the time of the collapse of Roman rule in Britain. 
Since the appearance of his work our knowledge on this 
subject has widened very considerably and we are now 
in possession of evidence which shows that not only North 
Wales but South Wales as well were Irish dependencies. 
The invasion and extent of the settlement of the Irish in 
South and West Britain are established by the discovery 
of Ogham inscriptions. 

Ogham is a purely Irish form of writing and Ogham 
inscriptions have been found only in Ireland, the Isle 
of Man, Scotland, Wales and the southwest of England. 
More than five-sixths of the known inscriptions have been 
found in Ireland itself, and it is to be noted that more 
Oghams have been found in Wales than in Scotland, the 
character of which as an Irish province has never been 
lost sight of. The total number of known inscriptions 
appears to be about 360 and of the Irish inscriptions, num- 
bering about 300, five-sixths have been found in what are 
now the counties of Kerry, Cork and Waterford. Scot- 
land has 16 Oghams; the Isle of Man has 6; in Devon 
and Cornwall there are 5; Wales has over 30 Oghams, 
of which 13 are in Pembrokeshire, 4 in Breeknock, 2 in 
Glamorgan, 1 in Cardigan, 6 in Carmarthen, and only 
1 in North Wales. In Hampshire there is 1, and this is 
interesting as showing the extent of the Irish military 

171 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

colonization across Monmouth, Gloucester, Somerset and 
Wilts into what is regarded as purely English territory; 
in the rest of England none. 

No Oghams have been found on the Continent, but at 
Biere in Saxony there are stone tablets bearing unintel- 
ligible syllables traced in Ogham characters, possibly the 
work of some traveling Gael who knew just a little of the 
craft. All the inscriptions that have been deciphered and 
interpreted belong to the same language — an early form 
of Irish — except a few in northeastern Scotland, which 
are said to be in the Pictish language. The distribution 
of the inscriptions clearly corresponds to the region of 
Irish influence in the period that followed the withdrawal 
of the Roman legions from Britain. The bulk of the 
Ogham inscriptions are ascribed to the fifth and sixth 
centuries, and their disuse appears to have come about 
consequent on the spread of Christianity and Latin learn- 
ing and letters. 1 

The Ogham inscriptions, which are engraved on stone 
pillars in various parts of Wales, were discovered after 
Dr. Jones had written his book and they constitute 
unquestionable evidence of the prolonged presence of 
Irish people in Wales. They confirm Dr. Jones's original 
conclusions but show that he did not go far enough. They 
show that practically the whole of Wales was long an 
Irish possession. The Ogham inscriptions are mostly of 
an obituary or mortuary character, connected with relig- 
ious motives, pagan or Christian. No list of Irish nobles 
or kings or fact of great historical value is found in them. 

The Welsh inscriptions, like the others, are couched in 
the Irish language. Over twenty of them have a Latin 
rendering, a thing rare in Ireland. There have been 

i MacNeill, Royal Irish Acad., 1907-9. 

172 



Irish Principality in Wales 



found over the same region in south Britain seventy other 
non-Ogham inscriptions in Latin — all of them judged to 
be Irish, for the pillar stone with an inscription is a dis- 
tinguishing element in Irish archeology. The Latin 
inscriptions in the main are in Irish minuscules of the 
period, which appear indeed to have been the only form 
of writing known and practised either in Wales or 
England till the Normans introduced the Caroline charac- 
ters. 1 

It is made clear then that at a time judged to be during 
the third and fourth centuries, when Roman power was 
still strong in Britain, the western regions were invaded 
and settled by Irish colonists and soldiers with their 
families. Thus is explained the presence in Wales and 
the Cornish peninsula of a substantial Irish-speaking 
element in the population. On the other hand, evidence 
of the activity of the Romans in South Wales in the fourth 
century is of the scantiest. Between the Irish in Wales 
and Ireland there was maintained a regular intercourse, 
an intercourse testified to, among other things, by the 
great abundance of Roman coins found on the east coast 
of Ireland. 

Hereditary family names did not come into existence 
till the eleventh century, but clan or sept names existed 
from the beginning. Some of the Irish people in south 
Wales were known by the same clan names as those in 
Ireland, as in the case of Ui Liathain, an Irish family, or 
gens, settled in ancient Desmond, between Cork and Lis- 
more, having also a branch in Wales. 2 Cormac, son of 

i The epitaph of Cadvan, Irish king- of Gwynedd or North Wales in the 
seventh century, at whose court Welsh tradition says the exiled Edwin of 
Northumbria was brought up, is at the Anglesey church of Llangadwaladr. 
The inscription says: "Catamanus rex sapientissimus opinatissimus omnium 
regum." 

2 "Filii autem Liethan in regione Demetorum et in allis regionibus id est 
Guir (et) Cetgueli" (Hist. Britt. c. 14). 

173 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

Culinan, in his ninth century Glossary also places a "Dind 
map Letani" among the Cornish Britons. 1 

It has been shown that from 270 A. D. onward there 
were many expeditions from Ireland directed against 
the Britons. The suggestion that such evidences of the 
Gael as exist in south Britain might be derived from the 
Irish wave that is supposed to have preceded the arrival 
of the Britons in the island appears to have been dis- 
proved. "Whether we take history for our guide or 
native tradition or philology, we are led to no other 
conclusion than this: that no Gael ever set foot on British 
soil save from a vessel that had put out from Ireland." 2 
The eighth century tale of Indarba mna n Dese tells 
how the Desii, 3 a powerful Irish family, having been 
defeated by the high king, Cormac, mac Art ('226-266 
A. D.), left their old holdings in Deece, near Tara, and, 
dividing, went part to Decies in Munster, which still 
bears their name, and part under the leadership of 
Eochaid, son of Artchorp, to Dyfed or (south Wales) 
and remained there permanently. These Irish invaders 
appear to have displaced or conquered the native Silures, 
of whom the famous Caractacus, made prisoner by the 
Romans, had been king. In the eighth century Tewdor 
ap Rhain, king of south Wales, was claimed by the Deisi 
of Munster as a descendant of one of their ruling chief- 
tains, Eochaid Allmuir, whose second appellation points 
him out as one who had sought his fortunes across the 
sea. 

1 S. v. Mugeime. 

2 Irish tale, ed. by Kuno Meyer for Vol. XIV of the Cymmrodor. 

3 The Welsh form of the pedigree is to be found in Harl. MS. 3859 (Cymmr. 
IX, 171) and Jesus College (Oxford) MS. 20 (Cymmr. VIII, 86). 



174 



CHAPTER XIV 
IRISH CHRISTIANITY IN WALES 

I. Power of the Gael in Britain. 2. Wales Less Enduringly Irish than 
Scotland. 3. Irish Foundations in Wales. 4. Irish Intellectual In- 
tercourse with Britain. 5. Ireland's Imperial Status and the Council 
of Constance. 

i. Power of the Gael in Britain 

IRISH noblemen and their families often owned two 
territories or estates, one in Ireland and the other in 
west Britain, visiting and living in each by turns. 
The heads of Irish clans often crossed over to receive the 
tributes due to them from their British possessions. This 
is made clear from the ancient work of Cormac, son of 
Culinan, already referred to, from which it appears that 
so extensive were the settlements of the Gael in Britain 
that the Irish territory beyond the channel was almost 
equal in extent to Ireland itself, and Irish princes par- 
celed out the land of Britain, taking each one his share, 
building up strong forts and noble habitations, so that 
not less did the Irishman dwell on the east coasts of the 
sea than in Ireland. This record, overlooked by most 
historians and absolutely unknown, like most Irish rec- 
ords, to the average English historian, is referred to by 
O'Donovan as "one of the most curious and important" 
preserved relating to early Irish and British history. 1 It 
was after visiting his family and friends in their estates 
in Wales that Cairbre Muse, son of Conaire, brought the 
first lap-dog into Ireland, it would seem from the same 

1 Battle of Magh Rath, Pub. I. A. S., 339. 

175 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

record. The passage from Cormac's Glossary is so valua- 
ble and so little known that it is here given as it stands: 

"Mug Eime — that is the name of the first lap-dog that 
was in Eire. Cairbre Muse, the son of Conaire, brought 
it from the east from Britain; for then great was the 
power of the Gaels in Britain, they divided Alba between 
them into districts and each knew the residence of his friends, 
and notless did the Gael dwell on theeastsideof thesea than 
in Scotia (i. e., Erie, or Ireland), and their habitations 
and royal forts were built there. There is (a fort) called 
Dun Tradui, i. e., triple fossed fort of Crimhthann, the 
great son of Fidach, King of Eire and Alba, to the Ichtian 
Sea, and there is Glastonbury of the Gael, i. e., a church 
on the border of the Ichtian Sea, and it is on that part 
is Dinn map Laethain, in the lands of the Cornish Britons, 
i. e., the Fort of Mac Leithan, for mac is the same as 
map in the British. Thus every tribe divided on that 
side, for its property on the east was equal to that of the 
west, and they continued in this province till long after 
the coming of Patrick." 1 "Alba" here applies to southern 
Britain, tho more frequently applied to northern Britain. 
Both are called the land of the "Albiones" by Avienus. 2 
Bede is also circumstantial about the power of the Irish 
in Britain. 

In various parts of Wales the word Gwyddel, mean- 
ing Gael, or Irishman, enters into the composition of local 
names. Dr. Jones, in the work already referred to, enu- 
merates twenty-five instances; and there are numerous 
references to the Gael in the traditions of the Cymri, who 
claimed to be the earliest inhabitants of the country. They 

i Sanas Chormaic, i e., Cormac's Glossary, ninth cent., edit, by Stokes for 
I. A. S. 1868, p. 110. 

2 Holder, Sprachschatz, sub voce, Albion. 

176 



Irish Christianity in Wales 



complain of invasions of their territory time and again 
by the Gaels from Eire. 1 

The ancient Irish work, Leabhar na g-Ceart, or Book 
of Rights, has numerous entries attesting the existence 
of considerable commerce and intercourse between Brit- 
ain and Ireland. We are told that under the pagan Irish 
kings 300 vessels traded with Britain. Welsh merchants 
returned from Dairius, an island in Wexford Haven, to 
St. David's ; and Welsh harbors, like Porthmawr, are men- 
tioned as points of departure for Ireland. Irish princes 
made frequent matrimonial alliances with families of 
equal station in west Britain. The superior wealth and 
influence of Ireland are shown in the constant mention, 
particularly in the fifth and sixth centuries, of Britons, 
both male and female, living as slaves in Ireland. Thus 
we read of St. Ailbe (d. 541) that he was given in fos- 
terage to certain Britons who were in servitude in Ireland, 
in the east of Munster. All this gravitates in the direction 
of proving that Wales was then a vassal state in respect 
to Ireland. Monks passed to and fro between Ireland 
and west Britain, residing on both sides of the sea. To 
a British monk, working as a cartwright in an Irish 
monastery, S. Fintan tells the story of his visit to the Land 
of Promise. British princes fighting the Angles and 
Saxons found not only food and shelter but also soldiers 
and ships in Ireland. 

Thus the Irish, who had subdued the war-like Picts of 
north Britain, not only established their authority over 
the people of south Britain "Even to the Ictian Sea" 
(English Channel), as Cormac tells us, but may be con- 
sidered the chief agency in the expulsion of the Romans 
themselves from Britain. Numerous places in Britain 

lBook of the West Cornwall, by S. Baring Gould, also Devon, by same 
author (1899). 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

are still called after the Irishmen who formerly occupied 
them, as in the case of Holyhead, of which the Welsh 
appellation is Cerrig y Gwyddell, meaning "Rocks 
of the Gaels." "Irish Road" was the name applied 
to Watling Street, the Roman highway running 
from Richborough in Kent to Holyhead. The Irish, 
wherever they settled in Britain, built for their families 
circular raths and forts. Many remain, particularly in 
Anglesea, and are called Cyttie r'Gwyddelod, or the 
"Dwellings of Irishmen." 

The present spoken Welsh language contains a number 
of Irish words, relics of the former Irish domination, as 
the numerous Latin words in Welsh speak of the still 
earlier Roman conquest. 1 Investigation has likewise re- 
vealed that early Welsh legends originated in Ireland. 
Thus the story of the flooding which caused the Lake of 
Glasfrya Uchaf is modeled on the more celebrated Irish 
account of the forming of Lough Neagh. 2 

2. Wales Less Enduringly Irish than Scotland 

We cannot quite tell at what period the Irish hold over 
Wales ceased. At the beginning of the seventh century 
the Saxon Chronicle tells us that Irish in Britain con- 
tended with Ceolwulf, king of the West Saxon. The 
passing of Irish rule must have been gradual, and there 
are evidences of it even in the eighth century. An Irish 
bishop of Britain, Sedulius, signed the decree of the 
Roman council of 721, where he is put down as "Epis- 
copus Britanniae de genere Scotus." "Fergustus episco- 

iRhys. Revue Celtique, XVII, 102. 

2 The earlier portion of the Annales Cambriae (444-954 A. D.) seems to be 
derived from an Irish chronicle used also by Tigernach and the compiler of 
the Annals of Ulster. During its first century it contains hardly anything" 
relating- to Britain. Its first reference to English history is in relation to 
the mission of St. Augustine. 

178 



Irish Christianity in Wales 



pus Scotiae Pictus" is also mentioned. If any- 
considerable area remained at that time Irish it had 
remained such for over four centuries. 

Wales had an Irish ruler as late as 1080. He was 
Gruffyd, the son of Cynan, or Caionain, or assuming the 
name was actually a surname, for surnames were then being 
established in Ireland, he is in Irish, Gruffyd Mac 
Caionian, and in Welsh, Gruffyd ap Cynan. He is so pre- 
sented in the annals, and is styled King of Gwynedd or 
north Wales by right of inheritance. He left, among 
other donations, "a gift of twenty shillings to Dublin, that 
city being his native place," and like gifts to other 
churches in Ireland. 

The international connections of Irish schoolmen are 
indicated in the case of Gildas (not to be confounded with 
the earlier historian of the Britons) , who was born in 820 
in Wales, "Whose parents were Irish," and who went to 
get his education in Ireland. He blossomed out as an 
author and one of his works is dedicated to Rhabanus 
Maurus of Fulda, who had studied under Alcuin at 
Tours. 1 

Briton and Gael were often confounded. Pelagius, to 
give a well known instance, is described both as a Briton 
and an Irishman. Mochta, described as disciple of St. Pat- 
rick and as a Briton, studied in Rome. Being taunted in 
the city about Pelagius, he replied: "If for the fault of 
one man the inhabitants of a whole province are to be 
banned let ... . Rome be condemned, from which not 
one but two, three or even more heresies have started." 

1 The earlier Gildas, who wrote the Epistola, had many Irish connections 
and lived part of his life in Ireland. He is said by some authorities to have 
had an Irish mother, and was at Armagh, both as student and professor. 
Irish schoolmen visited him in Wales. St. Cadroc, who is a distinguished 
figure in Welsh history and legend, is described by Colgan as an Irish Scot, 
in other words as an Irishman born in Ireland. Mabillon, the Bollandists, and 
Lanigan judge him to have been a British Scot, that is, an Irishman born in 
Britain. 

179 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

How it came about that Caledonia, or Alba, or North 
Britain or Scotland, as it is variously called, remained an 
Irish speaking country while west Britain became first 
Irish-speaking and then Welsh-speaking is a question that 
cannot be fully answered. Scotland was of course easier 
of access, and intercourse between Ireland and its north- 
ernmost province was regularly maintained. A broad 
and turbulent sea on the other hand divided Ireland from 
southern Britain. This made it less easy for the Irish 
colonists in Wales and the southern peninsula to bring 
their families with them, and the settlement was as a 
result of a more military character. 1 The proximity of 
the Romans and later of the Saxons would in any case 
have made it such. In this case, therefore, the rule, main- 
tained by certain historians, that invaders eventually inter- 
marry with, and adopt the language of, a conquered peo- 
ple when they do not bring their women folk with them, 
would appear to apply. Doubtless the Irish element in 
west Britain, at first the governing race, intermarried 
with the native British, and in that manner passed from 
the use of Gaelic to the kindred Cymric tongue. 

The determination of the fact that west Britain was for 
centuries Irish ground has a direct bearing on the con- 
troversies that have from time to time arisen regarding 
the provenance and nativity of such men as Pelagius, 
Sedulius, Boniface and others, who have been called Irish, 
but who have also been said to have been born in Britain. 
Thus Boniface was born in what is now called Devon- 
shire when it was distinctively Brito-Irish territory and 
many years before it fell to the West Saxons. 

iWhen Brandoff, powerful king of Leinster, c. 597, heard that Prince Cum- 
tauscacg was coming 1 to Leinsteer on "a. youthful free circuit" he did not 
wait to receive him personally and said: "Let a messenger be sent to them 
and let them be told that I have gone into Britain to levy rent and tribute." 
— (Silva Gadelica, 408.) 

180 



Irish Christianity in Wales 



3. Irish Foundations in Wales 

During the latter part of the Irish occupation that part 
of Britain now denominated Wales was largely Chris- 
tian. Christianity had been gradually diffused amongst 
the ancient Britons during the Roman occupation and 
with the accession of Constantine was introduced into 
those parts of Britannia Secunda already colonized. The 
efforts of Roman priests were supplemented during the 
fifth, sixth and seventh centuries by the devoted labors 
of Celtic missionaries, both Irish and Cymric, of whom 
nearly five hundred names still remain on record. The 
incessant intercommunication of the Irish and Welsh saints 
at this time in B ritain, joined with the paucity of the Welsh 
records, make it difficult to tell which of them were origi- 
nally Irish and which Welsh. To the period succeeding 
the fall of the Roman is ascribed the foundation of many 
great Celtic monasteries in Wales. 

As early as the close of the second century we find 
Tertullian declaring that "even those parts of the 
Britannic islands which were unapproached by the 
Romans were yet subject to Christ." This may be pre- 
sumed to refer to Ireland and west Britain. Chrysostom, 
writing in the year 390, provides similar testimony: 
"Altho thou shouldst go unto the ocean and those Britannic 
islands .... thou shouldst hear all men everywhere dis- 
coursing matter of Scripture." 

The Acts of the Irish S. Fingar, with his sister Piala, 
tell of seven hundred and seventy-seven of his country- 
men — allowance has to be made for the figures — who 
carried the faith into south Britain round the fifth cen- 
tury. These Acts bear testimony to the prosperity and 
progress of Ireland and speak of seven princes, possibly 

181 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

the seven sons of Amalgaidh, king of Connaught, who 
heard the apostle Patrick on one occasion, but who 
despised him for the lowliness of his habit and address. 

Bangor-Iscoed and St. David's in Wales, as well as the 
lesser monasteries, were probably as much Irish founda- 
tions as Iona or Luxeuil. Keating distinctly declares that 
Bangor in Wales was founded by Comgall, who 
founded Bangor in Ulster: "It was he who founded 
the abbey of Bangor in the aird of Ulster, which 
was the mother to all the monasteries of Europe 
(or its order), and who erected another abbey in 
England beside West Chester, which is called Bangor." 1 
Whether founded by Comgall or not, it is highly 
probable that Bangor was an Irish foundation. It 
had, as Bede notes, seven parts or churches, like several 
other Irish foundations. Though the name of Pelagius 
has been absurdly connected with it, we know that Bangor 
really dates from the sixth century when Irishmen were 
founding monasteries all over Ireland, England and con- 
tinental Europe. We know that Irishmen then were in 
complete possession of Wales and we know that there was 
a great revival in Wales at that epoch — "an improve- 
ment in their religious and political existence." This im- 
provement was simply a widening of the radius of the 
intellectual movement then developing in Ireland, that 
was making itself felt on the borders of Asia and Africa 
and could hardly have left Wales any more than the rest 
of Britain out of its powerful sweep. 

St. David's of Menevia (Lat. Menapia), no less than 
Bangor, has all the appearance of being an Irish founda- 
tion. It was the nearest Welsh seaport to Ireland and was 
much frequented by Irish travelers on their way to and 

i Dionbhrollao (trans, by D. Comyn, Introduction to Gaelic History). 

182 



Irish Christianity in Wales 



from the Continent and south England. S. David (degui, 
Dewi) is held to have had an Irish mother and may 
indeed have been wholly Irish. The monastery named 
after him was established on land given by an Irish noble 
in Pembrokeshire named Baja, "vocatus Scottus," a pagan 
and a druid. He was bishop of the Irish colony of Deise. 

It is noteworthy that the lives of the Cambro-British 
saints, 1 which are highly mythical, show that it was con- 
sidered the correct thing for a British saint to have studied 
in Ireland. 2 

Glastonbury, the only monastery prominent both under 
the Britons and the Saxons, probably owed its founda- 
tion and certainly owed its renewal to Irishmen. We 
know that with Malmesbury it formed a chief channel 
by which Irish influence and teaching entered Britain in 
the south as they entered across the borders of Cumbria 
and Northumbria in the north. It is called "Glastonbury 
of the Irish" in the Leabhar Breac, or Speckled Book of 
Dun Doighre, as well as in the Martyrology of Marianus 
Ua Gormain and in the Calendar of Cashel. Cormac, 
son of Culinan, likewise in his remarkable Glossary, 
denominates it "Glastonbury of the Gael." Both Lynch 
in his "Cambrensis Eversus" and Camden in his "Bri- 
tannia" declare that Glastonbury was founded by Irish- 
men. Glastonbury, now joined to the mainland, was once 
an island in the River Brue, or Brent, like so many other 
Irish foundations, as, for example, Hohenau, Seckingen, 
Reichenau, and Rheinau, all islands in the River Rhine. 
The foundation and town did not fall into Saxon hands 
till 710. It remained then no less a favorite resort of the 
Irish. The medieval biographer of S. Dunstan writes 

1 Edited by Rees. 

2R g., St. Cadoc (Rees. pp. 35, 36, cf. p. 59); St. Kebi, ib. pp. 184-6; of 
Chronicle of the Picts and Scots, ed. W. F. Skene, pp. 112-113; Plummer's 
Bede, 11, 196. 

183 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

that "numbers of illustrious Irishmen, eminently skilled 
in sacred and liberal learning, came into England and 
chose Glastonbury for their place of abode." 1 Eventually 
Glastonbury Abbey covered sixty acres and is said to have 
been one of the finest in the world. 

The old Latin name, Glastonia, appears to be based on 
the Gaelic, glas donn, brown river, and inis glais duinn, 
island of the brown river. On this island at an early 
date was built a small walled church, which was known 
as the "old church," ecclesia vetusta, in the time of 
Ina of Wessex (resigned 728), who built a larger church 
east of it on the advice of Aldhelm. That the vetusta 
ecclesia was the church of St. Patrick is shown by two 
charters. 2 "I, King Ina," says one (c. 704 A. D.) , "bestow 
this freedom on the monks, who in the church of the 
Blessed Virgin and the Blessed Patrick, serve Almighty 
God under Abbot Hemgislus, in the ancient town called 
Glastingaea and place this worth and privilege on the 
altar." This charter is subscribed by Aldhelm. Previously 
in 681 Baldred, king of Mercia, granted to Hemgislus, 
abbot (of Glaston), as an addition to the honored church 
of the Blessed Mary and St. Patrick (ecclesiae beatae 
Mariae et Sancti Patricii), the lands of Somerset. In 
the charter of 725, Ina calls the old church "the first in 
Britain," but the name of St. Patrick is omitted, the 
Benedictine having apparently by that time displaced the 
Irish rule as it did almost everywhere on the Continent 
later. The lands granted and confirmed by Ina include 
a parcel called "Boek Ereie" which is frequently men- 
tioned afterwards in grants or otherwise with the addi- 
tion "little Hibernia" (parva Hibernia). "Boek Ereie" 
is a phonetic rendering of the Gaelic words "beg Eriu," 

1 Osbern, Vita S. Dunstani. 

2 Kemble, "Codex Diplomaticus." 

184 



Irish Christianity in Wales 



little Ireland, and there was also a famous islet of that 
name in Wexford Harbor — it is still known as Begery. 
Johannes Glastoniensis (fl. 1400), who wrote the his- 
tory of Glastonbury, says that there was down to his time 
an ancient chapel in honor of S. B rigid on the island of 
Beag Erin, and he mentions the ornamentation of the tomb 
of St. Patrick. 1 When Cenwealh in 658 captured Glas- 
tonbury he found there the Hiberno-British foundation 
which since the overthrow of Ambresbury had been a 
center of Hiberno-British Christianity. Different from 
Ambresbury, it was not destroyed, for Cenwealh had 
lately been made a Christian and was under Irish influ- 
ence. 

William of Malmesbury has a great deal about Glas- 
tonbury's Irish associations, and quotes a charter of Edgar 
(959-975) endowing Glastonbury, in which one of the 
parishes is called "Beokery, otherwise little Ireland." 
Of the displacement of Irish monks there, Camden says: 
"In these early ages men of exemplary piety devoted 
themselves here to God, especially the Irish, who were 
maintained at the king's expense and instructed youth in 
religion and liberal sciences. They had embraced soli- 
tude to apply themselves with more leisure to the study 
of the Scriptures and by a severe course of life accustom 
themselves to bear the cross. At length Dunstan, a man 
of domineering and crafty temperament, by underhand 
acts and flatteries, wormed himself into an intimacy with 
the kings and introduced in their stead the monks of a 
newer order, namely, of S. Benedict." 2 

St. Bees Head in Cumberland still speaks of the story 
of Begha, or Bee, an accomplished Irish woman, canon- 



1 Ua Clerigh, Ireland to the Norman Conquest. 

2 Britannia. 



185 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

ized by popular veneration, who in the sixth century 
established there a convent and school. The promontory 
looks across the sea directly towards Mona insula Caesaris, 
the Isle of Man, which was to remain Irish in speech and 
population as long as Scotland. Begha's foundation stood 
in the midst of a strong Celtic state, both Irish and British, 
that firmly held back the northern Angles beyond the 
Pennine range. In its mixed population the Irish 
remained the ruling element and formed a link between 
their brethren to the north in Caledonia and to the south 
in Britannia Secunda. A common danger from the 
English fused Irish and British together and as a sign 
of the wearing out of old distinctions they took the name 
of Cymry (Comrades), a name by which the Welsh are 
known among one another, and which is also preserved 
in the name of Cumbria, or Cumberland. Cumbria 
formed part of Strathclyde, where lake-dwellings or cran- 
nogs after the Irish model have been discovered. 

4. Irish Intellectual Intercourse with Britain 

In the early days of Irish Christianity the Irish are 
usually considered to have turned to Wales for instruc- 
tion. Not much evidence can be found in support of 
this view. The Britons were then in a parlous state. 
Greco-Roman secular knowledge as well as a first acquain- 
tance with Christianity had passed to the Irish through 
Roman Britain. But when Britain ceased to be Roman 
the Britons had all they could do to preserve existence 
in the face of the foes that surrounded them. Neither 
as soldiers nor as politicians or churchmen did they show 
initiative. 

It was not until the sixth century, when the Irish church 

186 



Irish Christianity in Wales 



was in its first bloom and strength and was just beginning 
its great missionary movement, that Wales showed signs 
of awakening. It is then that the curtain first really lifts 
on Welsh history — behind that all is gloom, doubt and 
surmise. Finian of Clonard, Brendan of Clonfert, as well 
as other Irishmen, had close relations with Wales. The 
British revival was unquestionably a result of Irish labor. 

The British or Welsh church was always a laggard how- 
ever. Wales did not conform to Roman custom on the 
Easter question till the year 768, a hundred and thirty- 
nine years after the south of Ireland, and long even after 
Iona. Missionary activity abroad it hardly knew. "It 
is remarkable that while the Scots (Irish) were the mis- 
sionaries par excellence of nearly all Europe north ot 
the Alps, and in particular of all Saxon England north 
of the Thames," remarks one authority, "not one Cum- 
brian, Welsh, or Cornish missionary to any non-Celtic 
nation is 'mentioned anywhere. The same remark 
applies to the Armorican Britons." 1 Strange to say, not a 
single ancient manuscript of any part of the Bible, Latin 
or Greek, has been preserved that is pronounced to be the 
work of a Welsh school of copyists. 

From the testimony afforded in the treatises of Suadbar, 
the Irishman, on the art of cryptography published from 
the text of a Bamberg manuscript, there lived at the court 
of King Mermin in Wales (d. 844) an Irish scholar 
named Dubtach, who later on may have been identical 
with the Dubtach figuring in the Irish literary colonies 
of Sedulius Scotus at Liege and Milan, on which new 
light has in recent years been shed. Dubtach must have 
felt very much at home at this Welsh court, and appar- 
ently had assimilated much Welsh national feeling, for 

lHaddan and Stubbs, i, 154, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents. 

I8 7 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

from that vantage-point he issued a challenge to some 
Irish scholars to compete with him for the palm of learn- 
ing. The challenge was accepted by Suadbar and his 
friends and these friends were named, Caunchobrach, 
Fergus, and Dominnach, all scholars of the famous Colgu 
of Clonmacnois, master of many Irish scholars well known 
abroad. The problem put was to find the solution of some 
difficult matter in cryptography and this the Irish scholars 
succeeded in doing. Both the names of Fergus and Colgu, 
as well as that of Dubtach occur on some of the manu- 
scripts dating back to the circle of Sedulius. This Dub- 
tach, it is thought by Ludwig Traube, may be the author 
of the Leyden Priscian of the year 838. 1 

Apart from the evidences of Irish occupation in the 
way of Ogham pillars and inscriptions 'found in the 
Cornish peninsula, including Somerset, which remained 
part of the Celtic state till the year 710, when the Saxons 
under Ina gained the upper hand, the local nomenclature 
there speaks eloquently of the missionary and colonizing 
Gaels who dwelt in the region. Thus Buriana, a young 
Irish noblewoman, is declared to have given her name 
to St. Burian, near Land's End. Three miles to the south- 
west again is St. Levan, named, it is said, from the far- 
famed St. Livinus, an Irish bishop and classical poet, who 
died in the Low Countries, verses by whom are still left 
to us written in excellent Latin. St. Piran, known in 

1 Traube is also of opinion that Sedulius Scotus, who was the chief figure 
in the literary colony at Liege in the ninth century, and who knew well how 
to play the courtier and to cultivate the friendship of royal personages, 
as his numerous extant Latin compositions show, also had relations with 
King Ruadri, the successor of Mermin. The name Ruadri occurs on the St. 
Gall Priscian, which was one of the manuscripts belonging to the circle of 
Sedulius at Liege, and which is believed to have been brought out by them 
from Ireland, where it was probably produced, very likely at Clonmacnois. 
(Kl. Bay. Akad. Abhandl., 1891, O Roma Nobilis; Zeitk. f. deutsches Allthert. 
XIX, 147.) It is of course certain that many of the Irish schoolmen who 
became famous on the Continent must have done work in Wales and England, 
about which we now know nothing. 

188 



Irish Christianity in Wales 



Ireland as Ciaran, or Kieran of Saigir — it is curious that 
the Irish "k" or hard "e" always becomes "p" in Cymric — 
founded a church at Perran Zabuloe on the north coast 
of Cornwall; while St. Ives, the picturesque port oppo- 
site Falmouth, receives its name from St. la, one of Piran's 
missionary companions, who founded both the church and 
the town. Similarly from Petroc, another missionary 
Irishman, who labored in Cornwall, is said to be derived 
the name of Petrockstow, or Radstow. The close simi- 
larity of the stone crosses of Cornwall to those of Ireland 
is a further interesting illustration of the intercourse 
between the two and an evidence of the Irish settlement. 1 
So large was the number of Irish missionaries in Brittany 
from Ireland or Cornwall that Berger calls Brittany 
"une colonie spirituelle d'Irlande." 2 But here we are in a 
region of doubt and will pass on. 

5. Ireland's Imperial Status and the Council of 

Constance 

When we realize that the Gaels of Ireland, holding 
with a strong hand the west of Britain from the Solway 
Firth to the Channel, were still to conquer Scotland, that 
Irish navigators were traversing the seas as far north as 
Iceland and as far south as the tropic of Cancer, that 
while Cormac the Navigator was exploring the islands 
of the north, Brendan the Navigator may have reached 
part of the American continent, that Irish colonists and 
monks and explorers actually took possession of the Heb- 
rides, the Faroe Islands, the Orkney Islands, and Iceland, 
as well as the Azores and all the islands between; we 
seem to be envisaging the spectacle of a great sea-divided 

iRimner, "Ancient Stone Crosses of England," pp. 10, 11. 
2 Histoire de la Vulgate. 

189 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

empire in the making. Ireland in those times had unques- 
tionably great fleets of ships and was possest of a naval 
righting force that makes more easily comprehensible 
Roman hesitation in attempting her conquest. When in 
addition to this immense political colonization we see 
her moving to the intellectual conquest of Europe, reach- 
ing out as far east as the valley of the Dneiper and as far 
south as Carthage 1 and Egypt, we realize that Scotia and 
the Scot must have appeared influential figures in the eyes 
of medieval Europe. 

The center of a pulsating life that infused the civiliza- 
tion of the West to its farthest borders, Ireland was also 
the base of a great political colonization that endured for 
centuries and to which the term imperium might not 
unfittingly be applied. The great place that Ireland filled 
in the medieval eye made the idea of an Irish empire 
readily acceptable to the medieval mind and we find the 
idea adumbrated in the records. It was at the Council of 
Constance, however, held in the fifteenth century that we 
find indisputable proof of the hold the idea maintained 
in Europe. 

During the proceedings of the council it was solemnly 
and unanimously affirmed that Europe had contained four 
empires, or great divisions, and only four — namely, the 
Greek, the Roman, the Spanish, and the Irish. The 
discussion on the subject throws light on the international 
politics of the period. Becchetti, 2 speaking of the council, 
says that the Cardinal of Cambrai published a document 
in November, 1416, in which he denied the right of 
the English to be considered as a nation, or anything more 
than a German province, and argued that it was in the 

iHere apparently in 659 the Irish Aug-ustin or ^ngus wrote in classic 
Latin his "De Mirabilibus Sacrae Scripturae." 

2 Istoria degli ultimi quattro Secoli della Chiesa (Vol. Ill, p. 99.) 

190 



Irish Christianity in Wales 



interest of the court of France to oppose such English 
pretensions. This document excited in the minds of the 
English present the fiercest resentment. It has to be 
remembered that at that time fche governing class of 
England spoke a French patois, while the mass of the 
people spoke an English (or as it would have been called 
in the council, a German) patois, the English language 
at that time, despite Chaucer, not having been developed 
as a literary vehicle, most English writers preferring 
Latin. The representatives of the English crown at the 
council, themselves probably Francii, or Normans, were 
eagerly desirous of getting from the entire synod a decree 
in their favor, while the French wanted to have the ques- 
tion referred to the sacred college. Cardinal Alliaco 
based an argument on the bull of Benedict XII (d. 1342) , 
in which he enumerates the provinces subject to the 
Roman pontificate. He divided Europe into four great 
nations in accordance with the bull, in such a way that 
several tribes and nations were comprised under the head 
of Germany, and England was one of these. "Finalmente 
si rammentano varie divisioni, nelle quali erano gia state 
partite le provincie della Europa: cibe nei di Roma, di 
Constantinopoli, d'Irlanda, e di Spagna." Thus it was 
decreed that Ireland continued to remain one of the four 
great imperial divisions of Europe. However, as in 
141 6, when the council was held, the sovereign of England 
claimed also to be "Lord" of Ireland, by virtue of the 
bull granted to the French rulers of England by Adrian 
IV, a document which a church council could not readily 
disregard, a way was seen out of the difficulty. The king 
of England's shadowy claim in respect to Ireland, one 
of the four great divisions mentioned, was allowed, the 
pretensions of France to the precedency of England was 

191 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

set aside, and the deliberations of the council went on in 
undisturbed serenity. 1 

i Archbishop Ussher has the following in regard to it: "In the year 1417, 
when the legates of the king of England and the French king's ambassadors 
fell at variance in the Council of Constance for precedency, the English 
orators, among other arguments, alleged this also for themselves — it is well 
known that the whole world is divided into three parts — to wit, Asia, Africa 
and Europe. Europe is divided into four kingdoms, namely the Roman, for 
the first; the Constantinopolitan, for the second; the third, the Kingdom of 
Ireland, which is now translated with the English; and the fourth, the King- 
dom of Spain. "Whereby it appeareth that the king of England and his 
kingdom are the more eminent ancient kings and kingdoms of all Europe, 
which prerogative the kingdom of France is not said to obtain. And this 
I have inserted the more willingly because it maketh something for the 
honor of my country to which, I confess, I am very much devoted, and in 
the printed acts of the Council it is not commonly to be had." (Relig. Ant. 
Irish, cap. xi, Works, iv, p. 370.) See Ulster J. of Arch., O. S., vii, p. 306. 



192 



CHAPTER XV 

RECLAIMING THE ENGLISH TRIBES 

i. English Ignorance of Debt Owed to Irishmen. 2. Conversion of 
English Delayed by Neglect. 3. Reputation of English Aborigines 
among Civilized Peoples. 4. Total Helplessness of the Barbarians. 

i. English Ignorance of Debt Owed to Irishmen 

IYNCH in his "Cambrensis Eversus" 1 remarks with 
. wonder on the general ignorance in England con- 
cerning the debt that country owed to Irishmen, 
since the story of how they gave Christianity and civiliza- 
tion to the English is so plainly told in Bede. The remark, 
made in the seventeenth century, might be repeated in 
the twentieth. It is certainly a matter for enduring won- 
der that with the pages of Bede lying before their eyes 
so many English historians should have been tempted to 
depict ancient Ireland as a barbarian land in comparison 
with their own. Many .English writers indeed have not 
scrupled to go further and with bland temerity have 
endeavored to propagate the notion that it was the 
English who first brought civilization to Irishmen. Of 
such writers the legion will be forgotten, and with such 
as are remembered posterity and the facts will deal 
according to their deserts. Bede was the first as he has 
remained the decentest of English historians. Nearly a 
thousand years were to pass after his time before England 
was able to produce a school of historians writing in their 

1 Chapters XVI, XVII and XVIII of this work, first published in Latin in 
1662, has a good account of the manner in which the Irish missionaries 
converted the English natives. The work was republished in three volumes 
with a translation by Matthew Kelly in 1848. 



14 



193 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 



own English tongue. These historians showed no improve- 
ment over Bede. On the contrary they were hopelessly 
his inferiors in the fundamental virtues of the historian. 
It would be well if the generality of English writers 
would study the spirit and the method of the earliest of 
their historians. He nevertheless told but the beginning 
of the story of what Irishmen did for the English in the 
age in which he lived. The present state of our knowl- 
edge has permitted us to indicate their work in more 
extended detail with material drawn from sources as 
authoritative as the testimony of Bede himself. 

Montalembert credits "the Irish missionaries with the 
chief share in the conversion of England: "From the 
cloisters of Lindisfarne and from the heart of those dis- 
tricts in which the popularity of ascetic pontiffs such as 
Aidan and martyr kings such as Oswald and Oswin won 
day by day a deeper root, Northumbrian Christianity 
spread over the southern kingdoms What is dis- 
tinctly visible is the influence of Celtic priests and mis- 
sionaries everywhere replacing or seconding the Roman 
missionaries and reaching districts which their predeces- 
sors had never been able to enter. The stream of the 
Divine Word thus extended itself from north to south, 
and its slow but certain course reached in succession all 
the people of the Heptarchy." 1 Again he writes: "Of 
the eight kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon confederation, 
thai of Kent alone was exclusively woh and retained by 
the Roman monks, whose first attempts among the East 
Saxons and Northumbrians ended in failure. In Wessex 
and East Anglia the Saxons of the West and the Angles 
of the East were converted by the combined action of 
continental missionaries and Celtic monks. As to the two 

i Monks of the West, TV, 88. 

194 



Reclaiming the English Tribes 



Northumbrian kingdoms and those of Essex and Mercia, 
which comprehended in themselves more than two thirds 
of the territory occupied by the German (Saxon) conquer- 
ors, these four countries owed their final conversion exclu- 
sively to the peaceful invasion of the Celtic monks, who not 
only rivaled the zeal of the Roman monks, but who, 
the first obstacles once surmounted, showed much more 
perseverance and gained much more success." 1 

"Augustine was the apostle of Kent, but Aidan was the 
apostle of England," says Bishop Lightfoot. Aidan was 
but one of an army of devoted Irishmen, whose unweary- 
ing effort slowly lifted the English from savagery to 
civilization. Very remarkable was the manner in which 
they performed their work. 

2. Conversion of English Delayed by Neglect 

When we consider the energy and intrepidity mani- 
fested by the Irish monks in so many different places 
through the long period of their apostolic mission, we 
are confronted by their singular delay in organizing the 
conversion of the English. The Saxons, Angles and Jutes 
began to arrive in England previous to 449 A. D. No 
organized Irish mission appeared among them till 635 
A. D. Thus a period of nearly two centuries was allowed 
to elapse before the Irish sought to win these new peoples 
to Christianity. What were the reasons underlying this 
singular delay? No explanation can be afforded by sug- 
gestions as to the inactivity of the Irish themselves. [They 
were indeed far from inactive. Some of the greatest 
of the Irish schools had by 635 A. D. more than a century 
'of flourishing life behind them. Columcille had been 
almost forty years in his grave, his laborious and fruitful 

Ubid. IV. 125. 

195 



Ireland and die Making of Britain 

life a golden memory to his disciples, who with him had 
been laboring among the Picts for the greater part of a 
century. Columbanus and most of his associates too were 
dead after prolonged labor in France and the border- 
lands, and a hundred years before Columbanus there had 
been Irish priests and bishops in Gaul and Italy. In the 
year 620 A. D. there were Irish missionaries in Bavaria 
and Helvetia. But they passed the English tribes by. 
What was at the bottom of this seeming dereliction of 
duty? 

In this attitude of aloofness the Irish were not alone. 
Gaulish missionaries, whose negligence Pope Gregory 
later rebuked, showed great reluctance in respect to 
preaching to the invaders of Britain, for in a letter of 
introduction which Augustine brought from Gregory to 
Queen Brunhilda at Orleans we gather that applications 
from the English for help and conversion had been made 
in vain to neighboring priests. 1 

"We are informed," wrote the Pope, "that they long- 
ingly wish to be converted, but the bishops and the priests 
of the neighboring region (France) neglect them." The 
appeals of the English were probably prompted by the 
presence of Bishop Luidhard, soul friend to Bertha, a 
Christian Gaulish princess who had married Ethelbert, 
king of Kent. Bertha was the daughter of Caribert, king 
of Paris, granddaughter of Brunhilda, the great enemy 
of Columbanus, and great-granddaughter of Clotilde, 
wife of Clovis. 

Going still further, the clerics of the church of the 
Britons refused absolutely to have any hand in the con- 
version of the English, looking on them as being more 
worthy of eternal reprobation than of the joys of heaven. 

lEpIst. VI, 59. Migne, Pat. Lat. LXXVII, col. 842 seq. 

I96 



Reclaiming the English Tribes 

But their hatred is comprehensible. Despoiled and dis- 
placed by the newcomers the memory of the wrongs they 
had suffered was still green. The Irish element in west- 
ern Britain doubtless shared this sentiment of repulsion. 
But the inactivity of the Irish in Ireland is less easily 
comprehensible. 

The antipathy of the Britons for the English invader 
was implacable, and it endured even after the English 
had become Christians. Bede sorrowfully remarks 
respecting the intransigeance of the ancient Britons: 
"Among other most wicked actions, not to be exprest, 
which their own historian Gildas, mournfully takes notice 
of, they added this — that they never preached the faith to 
the Saxons or English who dwelt amongst them." 1 

A letter of Aldhelm to a ruler of Cornwall bears strik- 
ing witness to the feeling which the dispossest Britons 
continued to cherish towards the English tribes. "Beyond 
the mouth of the Severn," he writes, "the priests of Cam- 
bria, proud of the purity of their morals, have such a 
horror of communication with us that they refuse to pray 
with us in the churches, or to seat themselves at the same 
table. More than this, what is left of our meals is thrown 
to dogs and swine, the dishes and bottles we have used 
have to be rubbed with sand or purified by fire before 
they will condescend to touch them. The British neither 
give us the salutation nor the kiss of peace, and if one 
of us went to live in their country the natives would hold 
no communication with him until after he had been made 
to endure a penance of forty days." 2 

Bede tells us further that to his day it was "the custom 
of the Britons not to pay any respect to the faith and 

i Historia Ecclesiastica, Bk. I, Ch. XXII. 

SEpistola 1, Adhelmi ad Geruntium, Migne, Pat. Lat. LXXXIX, col. 87. 
It was originally found among the letters of Boniface. 

197 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

religion of the English, nor to correspond with them any 
more than with Pagans." 1 

The English reciprocated the antipathy of the Britons. 
Thus in the Anglo-Saxon legend of St. Guthlac 2 we find 
a curious assertion that St. Guthlac, having been among 
the British, understood the speech of the devils, who used 
that language. 

3. Reputation of English Aborigines Among Civi- 
lized Peoples 

To this sentiment of irreconcilability is it due that of 
all the barbarian races that descended upon the Roman 
provinces the Anglo-Jute-Saxons alone found civilization 
bodily withdrawing as they advanced. In other countries 
religion, administrative order and the appurtenances of 
learning were gradually assumed and assimilated by the 
newcomers. Britain was almost the only province of the 
empire where Roman civilization disappeared with the 
people who enshrined and administered it. The antipathy 
excited in the breast of the Romanized Briton became 
an insuperable barrier to the blending or association of 
races, and receding towards Britannia Secunda and 
Strathclyde before the violence of the new settlers they 
carried their whole organization of government and 
society with them. Thus the Anglo-Jute-Saxon invader 
was condemned to remain as much the primeval savage 
amid the noble monuments of Roman refinement and 
power as on the wastes of Sleswick or Jutland. 

To this primitive people, capable only of such ratiocina- 
tion as was needed to maintain a purely animal existence, 

lHist. Eccl. 

2 Contained in the Codex Exoniensis or Exeter Book, a collection of Anglo- 
Saxon poems given by Bishop Leofric to the library of the cathedral of 
Exeter, between 1046 and 1073, and published by the London Society of Anti- 
quarians in 1842. The legend concerning Guthlac (c. 673-714) is a metrical 
paraphrase of the Latin life by Felix, a monk of Croyland Abbey. 

I98 



Reclaiming the English Tribes 

Rome was the first to send light and teaching, for tho 
the Irish Columbanus and Dicuil with companions are 
said to have been in East Anglia before they were in 
Gaul, there is little evidence of any work accomplished 
there by them. 1 Thus it came about that Augustine and 
his associates appeared in Kent thirty-eight years before 
the Irish missionaries left Iona for Northumberland. But 
again in the case of the Roman missionaries we have evi- 
dence of the dread and repugnance felt in relation to the 
English barbarians. Augustine and his company had set 
out from Rome in June, 596; but the more these repre- 
sentatives of Roman civilization neared their destination 
the more pronounced became their distaste for the enter- 
prise in hand. At each stopping place accounts reached 
them concerning the uncouth islanders sufficient to deter 
the stoutest hearts. The Saxons were more ferocious 
than wild beasts, it was said; they preferred cruelties 
to feasting; they thirsted for innocent blood; they held 
in abhorrence the Christian name ; and torture and death 
were sure to await the emissaries of civilization. At 
Aries, or Aix-en-Provence, the missionaries, says Bede, 
"were seized with a sudden fear and began to think of 
returning home, rather than proceed to a barbarous, fierce 
and unbelieving nation to whose very speech they were 
strangers," 2 finally deputizing Augustine to acquaint Pope 
Gregory with the facts as they had learned them. Augus- 
tine went back to Rome and saw the Pope, while his 
companions awaited the new word of command. That 
word, carried back by Augustine, was to go forward on 
their journey — in the words of the pope, the greater the 

1 Jonas, the biographer of Columbanus, is the chief authority for this 
sojourn in England. They appear to have "found the hearts of the people 
in darkness," and despairing of "sowing the seeds of salvation," went to 
the "nearest nations" (Migne, Pat. Lat., v. 87, col. 1016). 

2 Hist. Eccl., Book I. Ch. XXXII. 

199 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

suffering the greater would be their reward. So Paris 
was reached and there the winter months were passed; 
and finally, after a creeping journey that lasted almost a 
year, in the spring of 597 Augustine arrived at Thanet 
and came face to face with the islanders. 

What we know of the Angles and Saxons at this period 
is derived from foreign sources and is expressive chiefly 
of the vague apprehension and distrust naturally felt by 
the civilized person towards the remote and little known 
savage. Their occupation is represented as that of pirates, 
whom no storm could affright in the pursuit of their prey. 
They slew their captives, as Freeman notes, with fearful 
tortures. A contemporary Gallic bishop, Sidonius Apol- 
linaris, describes them as brigands, "the most turbulent 
of enemies," who made it a point not only of honor but of 
religion "to torture their captives rather than put them 
to ransom," whilst they sacrificed the tenth part of them 
to their gods. 1 Other Roman writers refer to them in 
similar vein, while Irish writers and speakers of the period 
habitually allude to them simply as "barbarians," "sav- 
ages" and "marauders." 2 

What went on after the settlement of the Saxons, Angles 
and Jutes in Britain we do not know. Cut off almost abso- 
lutely from the civilized world, of the very existence of 
which they could know but little, and utterly unable to 
make a record of any kind, their history remains a total 
blank for almost two centuries. Bede, for example, has 
no word on this period. The glories of Roman art and 
culture rose up around them, they may even have learnt 
to use Roman ruins as their dwellings, but tho they must 
have wondered they were unable to derive further profit 
from them. Alternating their wars with the Britons by 

lEpist. VIII, 6. 
SAdamnan, Vita S. Col. 

200 



Reclaiming the English Tribes 

savage and exterminating assaults on each other, their 
lives appear to have been a hopeless round of fighting 
and feasting. At this period the Welsh Triads accuse 
them of being addicted to the eating of human flesh. 
Ethelf rith, it is said, encouraged cannibalism at his court, 
and Georgi, a truant Briton there, is said to have become 
so enamored of human flesh that he could eat no other. 
They had also formed the unnatural habit of selling their 
children into slavery. The traffic in English slaves con- 
tinued for many centuries and the incorrigible practise 
was so deeply rooted that even Christianity could not 
eradicate it. English slavery during these ages had repul- 
sive features absent even from negro slavery at a later 
date, and the traffic filled Ireland especially with a large 
population of English fudirs and slaves. 1 

In facts such as these have we to look for the sources 
of the hesitation manifested by missionaries in endeavor- 
ing to carry civilization to the English tribes. The mate- 
rial appeared too menacing even to the self-sacrificing 
devotion of the missionary. It seems probable that the 
suicidal ferocity of the invaders tended to spend itself as 
they became settled in their new home. But their occu- 
pation of the country was gradual, and its progressive 
stages remain very obscure. 

4. Total Helplessness of the Barbarians 

The pages of Adamnan reveal to us a certain English 
filtering into or contact (with Irish communities even 
before the official mission of Aidan. There were Saxons 
among the servants and brethren at Iona in the time of 
Columcille. One of them named Genere worked as baker 
at the monastery; another was named Pilu. Columcille 
is said to have caused the death of a "certain bad frantic 

1 See Appendix A. 

201 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

man," a Saxon, who smote a monk of his household and 
cut his girdle with a spear. Aidan, the Irish king in 
Scotland, fought the English and defeated them at Leth- 
redh, c. 590, losing two of his sons and three hundred men. 
Adamnan tells us that on the night of the battle Colum- 
cille suddenly said to his minister Diarmuid, "Ring the 
bell." The brethren startled by the sound proceeded 
quickly to the church with the holy prelate himself at 
their head. Then he began on bended knees to say to 
them: "Let us pray now earnestly to the Lord for this 
people and King Aidan, for they are engaging in battle 
at this moment." Then after a short time he went out to 
the oratory and looking up to heaven said: "The bar- 
barians are falling now and to Aidan is given the victory — 
a sad one tho it be." 1 On another occasion a reference 
to "marauding savages" (barbari bellatores) indicates 
the presence of English in the neighborhood. 2 

A century after the reputed landing of Hengist and 
Horsa had to pass before the Angles colonized Northum- 
bria. Spreading westward and northward the English 
tribes at last came in contact with the Irish Scots of Cale- 
donia, and some of the native Anglian rulers fleeing from 
fratricidal strife found refuge with other English abo- 
rigines in Iona and Ireland. So Englishman and Irish- 
man began to meet in peaceful intercourse, the one the 
unredeemed and primeval savage, the other the represen- 
tative of an immemorial civilization and of the highest 
culture and purest Christianity of his age. 

Such contact with civilization was necessary if the 
English native was to be raised from his secular degrada- 

1 Fordun (Scotichr. iii, 29) identifies this battle, described as the battle of 
Miathi in Adamnan (I, viii), with the battle of Wodenysburgh, mentioned 
by the Saxon Chronicle at 591, and places it near Chester. Ussher and Chal- 
mers identify it with the battle of Lethrigh, recorded by Tighnernach in 591 
(Reeves' Adamnan, 34). 

2 Adamnan's Vita Columbae (ed., Reeves) I, xxxv. 

202 



Reclaiming the English Tribes 

tion. He himself provided conclusive proof that of him- 
self the barbarian could do nothing, and left to himself 
was likely to remain a barbarian to the end of time. On 
this very point some illuminating words have been 
uttered: ''How far human nature is capable by its own 
efforts of perfecting and developing itself we need not 
seek far for an example. If such an experiment will 
satisfy anyone, that experiment was tried here under the 
most favorable conditions. A century and a half elapsed 
from their (our Saxon forefathers') first settlement in this 
island before the first sound of the gospel was heard 
among them. What is the result? What steps have they 
taken on the roads of progress and improvement? What 
advancement in letters; what dawnings of science; what 
emancipation from the ancient paganism? Have they 
built up themselves? Have they built up a nation? Is 
there any improvement of any kind whatsoever at the 
end of 150 years more than there was at the beginning? 
None, rather the reverse. Their paganism has grown 
coarser, deeper, darker; their political confusions and 
convulsions more hopeless; their tendencies more savage 
and restless; their culture is an absolute blank. That 
any nation or any man can by his own efforts erect 'him- 
self above himself,' is the veriest delusion that ever 
imposed itself on the brain of the thoughtless and unwary. 
For whatever the Anglo-Saxons have since become they 
are indebted to an influence external to themselves. Had 
it not been for Christianity they must have remained for- 
ever in this ancient barbarism, making no improvement 
but sinking deeper into confusion frdm age to age. It 
brought them not only higher hopes but literature, arts 
and science in its train." 1 

1 Preface to "Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, Rolls Series, IV, edited by 
J. S. Brewer. 

203 



CHAPTER XVI 
ROMAN AND IRISH MISSIONARIES IN ENGLAND 

I. Mission of Augustine a Failure. 2. Irish Work Beginning of En- 
glish Civilization. 3. Aidan among the English Tribes. 4. Irish 
Prelate and Anglian King. 5. English Natives and Their Rulers 
Sheltered and Educated in Ireland. 

i. Mission of Augustine a Failure 

NEVERTHELESS it was not the Irishman but the 
Roman who was to be the first to attempt to carry 
Christianity to the English. It is very much to 
the honor of the great Pope Gregory that, burdened as 
he was with the cares of a world in travail, he should 
still concern himself with the rescue of these distant bar- 
barians, before any of their neighbors showed disposition 
to lend a helping hand to them. 

What the Roman missionaries sent by him accomplished 
is a story that has been often told. Ethelbert, ruler of the 
Jutes of Kent, was well disposed towards them, for he 
had obtained in marriage the Christian Frank princess 
Bertha. The king himself submitted to baptism on Whit- 
sunday and at the following Christmas Augustine was 
able to cheer Gregory with the news that 10,000 aborigines 
had followed the example of their king. Evidently the 
mass of them remained pagans at heart for when the fear 
of Ethelbert was removed by his death in 616 Essex and 
part of Kent reverted to heathenism. The associates and 
successors of Augustine, who died probably in 604, en- 
deavored to carry on and extend his work. They had 
only indifferent success. Lawrence at Canterbury, 

204 



Roman and Irish Missionaries in England 

Mellitus at London, Felix in East Anglia, Deacon James 
in Yorkshire, Ruffinianus at the infant abbey of St. Peter's, 
Canterbury, worked off and on at their difficult mission 
amid a population largely indifferent to their ministra- 
tions. Their sense of their own inadequacy is revealed 
by anxious and ineffectual appeals for help to their Brito- 
Irish coreligionists in western Britain. Paulinus in 627 
traveled northwards, and baptized Eadwine of Northum- 
bria, who had married a Kentish Christian princess, and 
is thought to have founded some churches. Six years 
later, following the victory of Penda over Eadwine, a 
pagan reaction swept everything Christian and civilized 
away and the natives relapsed once more into total sav- 
agery and heathenism. Eventually all the associates of 
Augustine, except Lawrence, fled the country, while Law- 
rence prepared to flee but was led by a dream to hold his 
ground. 

Such conversion as the Roman missionaries effected 
amongst the natives was skin deep. 1 When Redwald, 
king of East Anglia, for example, was ordered by his 
overlord, Ethelbert, to become Christian, he complied 
by adding an image of Christ as a god to his heathen 
deities, later throwing it out and abandoning even the 
pretense of conversion. 

1 Differences of opinion in regard to Easter, the tonsure, and other matters 
made cooperation Between the Romans and the Irish, as well as the British, 
difficult. This is made clear by the words of Lawrence himself: "To our 
very dear Lords and Brothers, the Bishops and the Abbots in all lands of 
the Irish (Per universam Scotiam),. Laurentius, Mellitus, and Justus, ser- 
vants of the servants of God. When the Apostolic See, according to the 
custom of sending missionaries throughout the world, sent us to preach the 
Gospel to the pagans of the "West, we came to Britain without previous 
knowledge of the inhabitants. But both Britons and Irish we esteemed highly 
for their sanctity believing that they conformed to the customs of the Church 
universal. Even when we were made aware that this was not the case with 
the Britons, yet we hoped better things of the Irish. We have, however, 
learned from Bishop Dagan, who has lately arrived in the island, and from 
the Gallican abbot, Columbanus, that the Irish do in no respect differ from 
the Britons. Bishop Dagan indeed, since he came among us, has not only 
refused to eat with us, but even to take food in the same house with us." 
(Bede, Hist. Eccles. II, iv.) 

205 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

2. Irish Work Beginning of English Civilization 

It was at this crucial period that the Irish missionaries 
appeared on the scene and started a more enduring move- 
ment of conversion. For it was they who with strong 
hands put the bit and bridle on the wild English tribes, 
tamed their savagery, kindled into flame the human spark 
within them, and led them despite themselves along the 
paths of Christian civilization. The work was prolonged 
and suffered many setbacks, from the natural backward- 
ness and brutality inherent in a savage population, from 
'Danish inroads, from unceasing tribal conflicts, and from 
pestilence and famine. But these great Irishmen per- 
severed and made their work permanent. Where the 
Roman had signally failed, the Irishman signally suc- 
ceeded, and wherever he took the work in hand the En- 
glish never looked back. In the work of these Irishmen 
English history and English civilization find written their 
book of Genesis. 

William of Malmesbury tells the tale simply when he 
talks of the faith of the English having been "brought to 
maturity by the learning of the Irish." Modern writers 
are more expansive. 

"The men who really plowed and harrowed the 
soil which was lying fallow among the masculine and 
vigorous peoples of northern and central England, of 
Northumbria and Mercia, were not Augustine's monks, 
but, as we have seen, the never-tired, resourceful, and 
sympathetic spiritual children of St. Columba, St. Aidan 
and their disciples." 1 

The immediate call that brought the van of the Irish 
missionaries among the Anglo-Saxon tribes came from 
Oswald, the native ruler of the Northumbrians. Oswald, 

iHoworth, Golden Days of the English Church, II, 171. 

2o6 



Roman and Irish Missionaries in England 

his brother Eanfrid, his mother, the widow of the savage 
Ethelfrid, and a large number of his relatives and sup- 
porters, had for many years been given shelter and pro- 
tection in Ireland and Hibernicized Britain. Oswald 
was twelve years old at the period of his departure into 
exile in 617. Fie returned in 634 with his companions, 
all of them enriched by contact with a civilization till 
then wholly strange to them. It is easy to imagine the 
impression made on the minds of these simple barbarians 
by what they saw in Ireland where Greco-Roman culture 
blended with ancient Celtic wisdom and splendor mel- 
lowed the national life and enriched the channels through 
which it flowed. Oswald and his companions returned 
to England, not only Christianized but also completely 
Hibernicized, fluent speakers of the Irish tongue, and 
wholly devoted to Irish ideals. The returned wanderers 
were doubtless glad to find themselves once again amid 
the scenes of their youth, but it is little wonder that the 
call for help to I on a was speedy. The brutalities, the 
indecencies, the horror and the squalor of unchanging 
barbarism, once so natural to them, could not henceforth 
be other than unendurable. To his Irish benefactors 
Oswald therefore sent hurried appeals, and these, recog- 
nizing under the savage manners and exterior of their 
proteges the elements of a common humanity, and think- 
ing the season opportune, decided to essay their regenera- 
tion. 

3. Aidan Among the English Tribes 
Bede picturesquely describes the manner in which the 
Irish missionaries were led into northern England. King 
Oswald as soon as he ascended the throne sent to the elders 
of the Irish, among whom he and his followers, when 
in banishment, had received the sacrament of baptism, 

207 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

desiring they would send him a bishop, by whose instruc- 
tion and ministry the English nation, which he governed, 
might be taught the advantages and receive the sacrament 
of the Christian faith. They were not slow in granting 
his request and sent him Bishop Aidan, a man of singular 
meekness, piety and moderation, zealous in the cause of 
God. On his arrival the bishop fixed his episcopal see 
in the isle of Lindisfarne. King Oswald also humbly 
and willingly in all cases gave ear to his admonitions, 
industriously applying himself to the work of building and 
extending the church of Christ in his kingdom; wherein 
when the bishop, who was not skilful in the English 
tongue, preached the gospel, it was most delightful to see 
the king himself interpreting the word of God to his 
commanders and ministers, for Oswald had acquired a 
perfect mastery of the Irish tongue during his long 
banishment. 1 Oswald's family and the Northumbrian 
nobility were in large part fluent Irish speakers and in 
some degree representatives of the new Irish learning. 
This learning gradually spread. 

The varied labors of the Irishmen are indicated by 
Bede: "From that time many of the Irish came daily 
into Britain and with great devotion preached the word 
to those provinces of the English over which King'Oswald 
reigned, and those among them that had received priests* 
orders administered to them the grace of baptism. 
Churches were built in several places; the people joyfully 
flocked together to hear the word ; money and lands were 
given of the king's bounty to build monasteries; the 
English, great and small, were by their Irish masters 
instructed in the rules and observance of regular disci- 
pline ; for most of them that came to preach were monks." 2 

iHist. Eccl. Ill, III. 
2 Hist. Eccl. Ill, III. 

208 



Roman and Irish Missionaries in England 

Others were, as Bede later tells us, laymen — physicians, 
scribes, lawyers, goldsmiths and the like — though the 
monks were working in most of the secular occupations 
too. Bishop Aidan was himself a monk of the island of 
Hii or Iona, which monastery was for a long time the 
chief of almost all those of the northern Irish and all 
those of the Picts and had the direction of their people. 
Bede adds: "That island (Iona) belongs to Britannia, 
being divided from it by a small arm of the sea, but had 
been long since given by the Picts, who inhabit those 
parts of Britannia, to the Irish monks, because they had 
received the faith of Christ through their preaching." 1 

It was from this island and college of monks that Aidan 
was sent to instruct the English natives, having received 
the dignity of a bishop at the time when Seginus, abbot 
and priest, presided over the monastery; whence among 
other instructions for life Aidan left the clergy a most 
salutary example of abstinence and continence. "It was 
the highest commendation of his doctrine with all men," 
adds Bede, "that he taught no otherwise than he and his 
followers had lived ; for he neither sought nor loved any- 
thing of this world, but delighted in distributing im- 
mediately among the poor whatsoever was given him by 
the kings and rich men of the world. He was wont to 
traverse both town and country on foot, never on horse- 
back, unless compelled by some urgent necessity; and 
wherever in his way he saw either rich or poor, he invited 
them, if infidels, to embrace the mystery of the faith; or, 
if they were believers, to strengthen them in the faith, and 
to stir them up by words and actions to alms and good 
works." 2 

Things had become different in England in the days 

1 Hist. Eccl. Ill, III. 

2 Hist. Eccl. Ill, V. 

15 209 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

of Bede who wrote nearly a century after the arrival of 
Aidan: "His course of life was so different from the 
slothfulness of our times that all those who bore him 
company, whether monks or laymen, were employed in 
meditation, that is, either in reading the scriptures, or 
learning psalms." This was the daily employment of 
Aidan himself and of all that were with him wheresoever 
they went. Study, work, and prayer were the main occu- 
pations and happiness of their lives, and if it happened, 
which was but seldom, that Aidan was invited to eat with 
the king the bishop "went accompanied with one or two 
clerks, and having taken a small repast, made haste to 
be gone again with them either to read or write." 1 

In words such as these we sense the consuming passion 
that flamed in the breast of this great Irish pontiff who, in 
the course of sixteen years, by unflagging work and plan- 
ning, effected the regeneration of the English people. 
His personality singularly affected the English tribes, so 
that the brightest amongst them thought they could do 
nothing better than do whatever he did or told them to 
do, difficult though it might be. "At that time many 
religious men and women, stirred up by his example, 
adopted the custom of fasting on Wednesdays and Fri- 
days, till the ninth hour, throughout the year, except 
during the fifty days after Easter." 2 

Bede goes on to tell us that Aidan never bestowed gifts 
of money on the powerful men of the world, but only 
meat, if he happened to entertain them; and, on the con- 
trary, whatsoever gifts of money he received from the 
rich, he either distributed among the poor, or used in 
ransoming such as had been wrongfully sold for slaves. 
Enslaving each other and selling their younger or weaker 

iHist. Eccl. Ill, V. 
2 Ibid. Ill, V. 

2IO 



Roman and Irish Missionaries in England 



relatives into slavery was, as has been said, an habitual 
practice among the English, and it was against this terri- 
ble traffic that Aidan's influence was directed. Many of 
those ransomed by him he made his disciples, and, after 
having instructed them, he advanced them in some cases 
to the order of priesthood. Eata, subsequent bishop of 
Lindisfarne, and Boisel, prior of Melrose, were among 
these redeemed proteges of Aidan. 1 

From among the brightest of these young men Aidan 
formed a school of twelve boys, and the school included 
Chad and Cedd, who both became distinguished bishops. 
The tradition was carried through the Irish foundations 
of the Continent. When St. Anskar, educated at Corbie, 
began his missionary work in Denmark he also founded a 
school of twelve boys. 

4. Irish Prelate and Anglian King 

Bede tells us that before Aidan the Irish had sent 
another priest to administer the word of faith to Oswald 
and his nation, a man of more austere disposition, who, 
meeting with no success, and being unregarded by the 
English people, returned home, and in an assembly of the 
Irish elders reported that he had not been able to do any 
good to the nation he had been sent to preach to, because 
they were uncivilized men, and of a stubborn and bar- 
barous disposition. 2 In a great council the Irish author- 
ities seriously debated what was to be done, for they 
strongly desired that the English nation should receive 
the salvation it demanded, and grieved that the preacher 
they had sent had not been received. Then, said Aidan, 
who was present in the council, "I am of opinion, brother, 

iHist. Eccl. Ill, V. 

2 Ibid. Ill, V. Bede does not give us the name of this priest, but Hector 
Boeoe says he was named Corman. 

211 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

that you were more severe to your unlearned hearers than 
you ought to have been and did not at first, conformably 
to the apostolic rule, give them the milk of more easy 
doctrine, till being by degrees nourished with the word 
of God, they should be capable of greater perfection, and 
be able to practice God's sublimer precepts." Having 
heard these words of Aidan all present began diligently 
to weigh what he had said, and presently concluded that 
he deserved to be made a bishop, and ought to be sent to 
instruct the incredulous and unlearned; since he was 
found to be endowed with singular discretion, which is 
the mother of other virtues. "Accordingly," says Bede, 
"they sent him to their friend, King Oswald, to preach; 
and he, as time proved, afterwards appeared to possess 
all other virtues as well as the discretion for which he 
was before remarkable." 1 

Bede draws a pleasing picture of the friendship 
between the Irish prelate and the English king, who 
under Aidan's influence grew into a beautiful character. 
Once when sitting at dinner on Easter Sunday with Bishop 
Aidan a silver dish full of dainties was put before the 
king and they were just ready to bless the bread, when 
the servant who had been appointed to relieve the poor 
came in on a sudden and told the king that a great multi- 
tude of needy persons from all parts were sitting in the 
streets begging some alms of the king; he immediately 
ordered the meat set before him to be carried to the poor 
and the dish to be cut in pieces and divided among them. 
At which sight the bishop, who sat by him, much taken 
with such an act of piety, laid hold of his right hand and 
said: "May this hand never perish 1" Which fell out 
according to his prayer, adds Bede, for his arm and hand, 

iHist. EccL III, V. 

212 



Roman and Irish Missionaries in England 



being cut from his body when he was slain in battle, 
remained entire and uncorrupted, being kept in a silver 
case as revered relics in St. Peter's Church in the royal 
city of Bamborough. Instructed by the teaching of 
Aidan, Oswald not only learned to hope for a heavenly 
kingdom unknown to his progenitors, but also extended 
his earthly kingdom, and through the king's management 
the provinces of Deira and Bernicia were peacefully 
united and their inhabitants molded into one people. 1 

Here we have a picture of Aidan in the character of 
statesman and prime minister. A man of varied culture 
and balanced judgment, his influence appears to have been 
strongly in the direction of union of effort and broader 
organization in national life. Considering that he was a 
stranger among a barbarous people, the reverence in 
which he was held and his undisputed authority speak 
eloquently for his character and gifts. 

Oswald thus, with Aidan's aid, succeeded in uniting 
Deira and Bernicia and became, after the Irish fashion, 
a sort of ard righ or high king over most of England. 
Throughout this area Irish teachers became numerous. 
Preaching the gospel was their main business, but it was 
by no means their sole business. As the years went on 
they trained the natives in agriculture and the breeding 
of cattle, in carpentry, in building, and the use of the 
forge, in metal and enamel work, in stonecutting, and 
in the preparation, transcription and ornamentation of 
books. In several of these lines their work and that of 
their English understudies remain in examples that have 
attracted the attention of archeologists for centuries. 

iHist. Eccl. Ill, VI. 



213 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

5. English Natives and Their Rulers Sheltered 
and Educated in Ireland 

Considering that Oswald was the son of Ethelfrid, the 
cannibal king and butcher of the unarmed religious of 
Bangor in Wales, his transition from the barbarous to 
the civilized state was a speedy one. The upbringing he 
received at Iona and in Ireland was effective in eliminat- 
ing the heritage of savagery which otherwise would have 
controlled his life. The forced exile imposed on him by 
Eadwine, who rose to power after his father's death, thus 
proved a happy circumstance. Oswald was accompanied 
in his banishment by his brothers and many English 
chiefs. 

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says at the year 617: "And 
he (Eadwine) drove out the ethelings, sons of Ethelfrid; 
that is to say, first Eanfrid, Oswald and Oswy, Oslar, 
Oswiedu, Oslaf, and Offa," all of whom were given safe 
keeping and education in Iona and Ireland. 

Oswald's elder brother, Eanfrid, married the daughter 
of the king of the Picts, and their son, Talorcan (d. 657), 
presently succeeded to the Pictish throne in right of his 
mother. 

Oswald while in Ireland appears to have married an 
Irish princess, Fina, mother of Aldfrid later king of 
Northumbria, who was thus known to the Irish as Flan 
Fiona. The fact would explain in some degree the growth 
of Oswald and his brother, and Aldfrid in refinement 
and culture. 

In the "Three Fragments" of Irish Annals, Aldfrid or 
Flan Fiona is called "the son of Ossa, King of Saxonland, 
the famous wise man, the pupil of Adamnan" (in t-einaid 
arma, dalla Adamnain). Here Adamnan, abbot of Iona 
and Latin biographer of Columcille, is called "Erin's 

214 



Roman and Irish Missionaries in England 

chief sage of learning" (Ardsui Erenn eolusa). This is 
the King Aldfrid who wrote poetry in Irish and Latin. 
Adamnan and Aldfrid are dealt with in these respects 
elsewhere. 

Oswald's mother, Acha, sister of King Eadwine, went 
to Ireland with her sons. Information regarding Oswald's 
acquirement of the Irish language is given in his life; 
"linguam Scottorum perfecte didicit et fidei documenta 
quae prius a matre Christiana perceperunt gentis illius 
credulae eruditione solidavit, et lavaero sacri baptismatis 
pureficatus." 1 

Other Irish annalists refer to the brothers. Tighernach, 
using both Irish and Latin after his manner, speaks of 
Eanfrid, the elder brother of Oswald, as having fought 
a regular battle, and says that afterwards he was be- 
headed; "Cath la (praelium per) Cathlon et Anfraith 
qui decollatus est." 

Adamnan relates a story in reference to the struggle 
between Oswald and Cadwalla, which his predecessor had 
heard from the abbot of Iona, who claimed that he had 
again heard it from the king himself. The night before 
the battle of Heavenfield while Oswald was sleeping on 
the ground in his tent St. Columcille appeared to him, 
radiant with angelic beauty, and his stately height seemed 
to reach the sky. The saint stood in the midst of the camp, 
announced himself, and stretched his resplendent robe 
over the little army of exiles, as if to protect them. He 
promised to secure them victory over their enemies. At 
that time there were only twelve of his companions who 
were Christians, having been baptized with him among 
the Irish. 2 

1- Vita Oswaldi, 12 cent., by Reginald of Durham, Simeon of Durham, I, 
341. 

2 "Vita S. Columbae. 

215 



CHAPTER XVII 
FIRST STEPS OF THE ENGLISH IN CIVILIZATION 

i. King Oswin's Veneration for Irish Prelate. 2. Aidan and His 
Foundations in England. 3. Finan Succeeds Aidan and Wins Mid- 
land England. 4. Re-converts Apostate East Saxons. 5. Rise of the 
Easter Controversy. 

i. King Oswin's Veneration for Irish Prelate 

THE friendship that united Aidan and Oswald was 
continued in the case of Oswald's successor, Oswin, 
whose habitual attitude towards the prelate was 
one of great veneration. Bede relates an anecdote which 
illuminates the character both of the bishop and the king. 
Oswin had given an extraordinarily fine horse to Bishop 
Aidan, which he might use in crossing rivers or in per- 
forming journeys of urgent necessity, tho he was wont 
to travel on foot. Some short time after, a poor man meet- 
ing him asking alms, he immediately dismounted and 
ordered the horse with all its royal furniture to be given 
to the beggar; for he was very compassionate, a great 
friend of the poor, and as it were, the father of the 
wretched. This being told to the king when they 
were going to dinner, he said to the bishop: "Why 
would you, my lord bishop, give the poor man the 
royal horse, which was necessary for your use? Had 
not we many [other horses of less value and of 
other sorts, which would have been good enough 
to the poor and not to give that horse which I 
had particularly chosen for yourself?" To whom the 

216 



First Steps of the English in Civilization 

bishop instantly answered, "What is it you say, O king? 
Is that foal of a mare more dear to you than the Son of 
God?" Upon this they went in to dinner and the bishop 
sat in his place; but the king, who was come from 
hunting, stood warming himself with his attendants by 
the fire. Then, on a sudden, while he was warming him- 
self, calling to mind what the bishop had said to him, 
he ungirt his sword and gave it to a servant, and in a 
hasty manner fell down at the bishop's feet, beseeching 
him to forgive him: "For from this time forward," said 
he, "I will never speak any more of this, nor will I judge 
of what or how much of our money you shall give to 
the sons of God." The bishop was much moved at this 
sight and starting up raised him saying he was entirely 
reconciled to him, if he would sit down to his meat and 
lay aside all sorrow. The king, at the bishop's command 
and request, beginning to be merry, the bishop, on the 
other hand, grew so melancholy as to shed tears. His 
priest then asking him in the Irish language, which the 
king and his servants did not understand, why he wept, 
"I know," said he, "that the king will not live long; for 
I never saw so humble a king; whence I conclude that 
he soon will be snatched out of this life, because his 
nation was not worthy of such a ruler." Not long after, 
the bishop's prediction was fulfilled by the king's death. 
But Bishop Aidan, adds Bede, was also himself taken out 
of this world twelve days after the king he loved, to 
receive the eternal reward of his labors from our Lord. 1 

Aidan, Bede tells us, was in the king's country house, 
not far from Bamborough, at the time of his death; for, 
having a church and chamber there, he was wont often 
to go and stay, and to make excursions to preach to the 

i Hist. Eccl. Ill, XIV. 

217 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

country round about, which he likewise did at other of 
the king's country-seats, having nothing of his own besides 
his church and a few fields about it. When he was sick 
they set up a tent for him close to the wall at the west end of 
the church, by which means it happened that he gave up 
the ghost leaning against a post that was on the outside 
to strengthen the wall. He died in the seventeenth year 
of his episcopate. His body was thence transferred to 
the isle of Lindisfarne and buried in the churchyard 
belonging to the brethren. Some time after, when a 
larger church was built there and dedicated in honor 
of the blessed prince of the Apostles, continues Bede, 
his bones were translated thither and deposited on the 
right side of the altar with the respect due to so great a 
prelate. When Penda, the pagan king of the Mercians, 
coming into Northumbria with a hostile army, destroyed 
all he could with fire and sword, including the village 
and church in which Aidan died, it fell out in a wonder- 
ful manner, says Bede, that the post which he had leaned 
upon could not be consumed by the flames. 1 He also 
relates how Aidan, residing in the isle of Fame, by his 
prayers saved the royal city of Bamborough, when fired 
by the enemy, this same Penda. 2 

Bede tells us that, like an impartial historian, he has 
related what was done by or with Bishop Aidan, pre- 
serving the memory thereof for the benefit of the readers ; 
viz., his love of peace and charity; his continence and 
humility; his mind superior to anger and avarice; and 
despising pride and vainglory; his industry in keeping 
and teaching the heavenly commandments; his diligence 
in reading and watching; his authority becoming a priest 

iHist. Eccl. Ill, XVII. 
2 Hist. Eccl. Ill, XVI. 

218 



First Steps of the English in Civilization 

in reproving the haughty and powerful, and at the same 
time his tenderness in comforting the afflicted and reliev- 
ing or defending the poor. "To say all in a few words, 
as near as I could be informed by those that knew him, 
he took care to omit none of those things which he found 
in the apostolic or prophetical writings, but to the utmost 
of his power endeavored to perform them all." 1 

Bede's eulogy of Aidan has the more value inasmuch 
as he did not approve of the date of the Celtic obser- 
vance of Easter, nay, "very much detesting the same," as 
he clearly indicates by his continued 'recurrence to a 
theme which excited great controversy and perturbation 
of mind in his day. But these aforesaid things he much 
loved and admired in the bishop. "This difference about 
the observance of Easter, whilst Aidan lived, was patiently 
tolerated by all men, as being sensible, that, tho he could 
not keep Easter contrary to the custom of those who had 
sent him, yet he industriously labored to practise all works 
of faith, piety, and love, according to the custom of all 
holy men; for which reason he was deservedly beloved 
by all, even by those who differed in opinion concerning 
Easter, and was held in veneration, not only by indifferent 
persons, but even by the bishops Honorius of Canterbury 
and Felix of East Angles." 

2. Aidan and His Foundations in England 

Aidan, like most of the notable members of other Irish 
monasteries, was of high birth, a fact which had a good 
deal to do in endowing him with influence both among 
the Irish clans and the English tribes. He was a son of 
Lugair, an Irish saint commemorated on May nth, and 
apparently of the same lineage as St. Brigid. He was 

iHist. Bccl. Ill, XVII. 

219 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

accompanied to Northumbria by several of the brethren 
of Iona, who increased in number as the work grew. 

Bishop Lightfoot writes concerning Aidan: "I know 
no nobler type of the missionary spirit. His character, 
as it appears through the haze of antiquity, is almost 
absolutely faultless. Doubtless the haze may have 
obscured some imperfections which a clearer atmosphere 
and a nearer view would have enabled us to detect. But 
we cannot have been misled as to the main lineaments 
of the man. Measuring him side by side with other 
great missionaries of those days, Augustine of Canter- 
bury, or Wilfrid of York, or Cuthbert of his own Lindis- 
farne, we are struck with the singular sweetness and 
breadth and sympathy of his character. He had all the 
virtues of his Celtic race without any of its faults. A 
comparison with his own spiritual forefather — the eager, 
headstrong, irascible, affectionate, penitent, patriotic, 
self-devoted Columba, the most romantic and attractive 
of all early medieval saints — will justify this sentiment. 
He was tender, sympathetic, adventurous, self-sacrificing, 
but he was patient, steadfast, calm, appreciative, discreet 
before all things." 1 

Aidan, before he became a monk of Iona, had been 
bishop of Clogher, 2 and had studied under the blessed 
Senan at Iniscathay (Scattery Island). His arrival in 
England marked an epoch in its national life. In that 
hour England may be said to have had its beginning. 
Where there had been little else but chaos, futility, igno- 
rance and infamy, Aidan placed on the formless mass the 
first imprint of order, humanity and religion. His work 
marked the first stage in the transition between savagery 
and organized culture in English history. 

i Leaders of the Northern Church, p. 44. 
2 According to Ware and Lynch. 

220 



First Steps of the English in Civilization 

Aidan's chief foundation was that of Lindisf arne, which 
was to radiate light and healing in the North for genera- 
tions and eventually to develop into the sees of Durham 
and Northumberland, and even, tho less directly, into 
the archbishopric of York. After Lindisfarne he and his 
missionary countrymen founded Mailros, or Melrose, 
and Whitby, then known as Streaneshalch. On the isle 
of Fame he established a hermitage to which he himself 
was wont to retire — later it became the favorite retreat 
of St. Cuthbert; and he founded the double monastery 
of Coldingham, the Urbs Coludi of Bede, which, like Ely 
and Barking, was modeled on the establishment of Kil- 
dare, whose patron was the illustrious B rigid, "Mary of 
the Gael." In this last foundation Aidan was associated 
with Aebba, sister of King Oswald, whose name is still 
enshrined in St. Abb's Head near by. Over Melrose as 
abbot, Aidan put Boisel, an English youth whom he had 
ransomed from slavery, master of Sigf rid, who was master 
of Bede. 

Lindisfarne in course of time gathered to itself sub- 
sidiary houses or cells, among them St. Balthere's at 
Tynningham, Craike, Cunceceastre, or Chester-le-Street, 
Norham and Gainford. The see also came into possession 
of large lands in York. 

The place Lindisfarne held in the veneration of the 
English is indicated by the emotion of Alcuin on the 
occasion of its pillaging by the Danes (793) : "The most 
venerable place in Britain, where Christianity first took 
root among us after Paulinus went away from York, is a 
prey to heathen men. Who thinks of this calamity and 
does not cry out to God to spare his country has a heart 
of stone and not of flesh." 1 

iMigne., Pat. Lat, C. 

221 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

In the foundation of other monasteries Aidan was asso- 
ciated with St. Hilda. Bede tells us that Hilda went and 
lived a whole year in East Anglia with the design of 
going abroad, but being recalled by Bishop Aidan, she 
received from him the land of one family on the north 
side of the River Wear, where for a year she also led a 
monastic life with very few companions. After this she 
was made abbess of the monastery called Heruteu, which 
monastery had been founded not long before by the 
religious servant of Christ Heiu, whom some identify 
with Begha, or Begu, an Irishwoman of noble family, 
whose name is preserved in St. Bees Head in Cumber- 
land. Heiu is said to have been the first woman that in 
the province of the Northumbrians took upon her the 
habit and life of a nun, being consecrated by Bishop 
Aidan ; but she soon after she had founded that monastery, 
went away to the city of Calcacestir, and there fixed her 
dwelling. Hilda, being sent over to that monastery began 
immediately to reduce all things to a regular system, 
according as she had been instructed by learned men; 
for Bishop Aidan and other religious men that knew 
and loved her frequently visited and diligently instructed 
her. Some years later the monastery at Streaneshalch 
(Whitby) was built and from it came five bishops — Bosa, 
Hedda, Oftfor, John and Wilfrid (2nd). St. Hilda was 
the daughter of Hereric, the nepos of King Aedwine. 
Attracted by the reputation of some of the Irish convents 
in Gaul, she appears to have made up her mind to join 
one of them, but if Bede is to be taken literally she did 
not get out of England, being summoned back by Aidan. 
She moved to Hartlepool when Heiu went to Tadcaster, 
and here she appears to have had the help of certain 
learned Irishmen. In 651 when Finan had succeeded 

222 



First Steps of the English in Civilization 

Aidan, Whitby monastery was established on the Irish 
double monastery plan, "Mother Hilda" presiding over 
both. 1 

Several of the Irish foundations in Gaul were double 
monasteries. Examples were Remiremont, Soissons, 
Jouarre, Brie, Chelles and Andelys ; the last three, as Bede 
tells us, being especially favored by English female con- 
verts. Boniface introduced the feature in Germany, where 
the establishments were in several cases presided over by 
nuns trained at Wimborne. It was the example of Hilda's 
sister Heresuid, mother to Aldwulf, king of the East 
Angles, who lived at Cale, or Chelles in France, that 
led her to desire to live there. 2 

From the first these double monasteries flourished in 
the Irish church, perhaps because they were a feature 
of the clan system when men and women alike belonged 
to the same religious community. In Ireland the head 
of such monasteries was usually a man; but in the Irish 
monasteries of England, especially in those founded by 
relatives of the native rulers, and in Columbanus's double 
monasteries in Gaul and Belgium, the monastery of 
clerics or priests, which was generally placed at the gates 
of the convent, was ruled over by the abbess. The singular 
inversion of the normal relationship was due probably 
to the fact that in such cases the real center or original 
foundation was the convent, but that for the spiritual 
needs of the nuns as well as for the oversight of their 
lands and estates there grew up a smaller dependent 
monastery of priests and lay brethren. But in some 
monasteries the monks were in the majority. Among 
the double monasteries in England, most of them Irish 
foundations, Bardney, Barkney, Ely, Whitby, and Cold- 

i See N. B. Workman, Evolution of Monasticism, pp. 177-8. 
2Eccl. Hist. IV, XXIII. 

223 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

ingham are mentioned by Bede. Others existed at Wim- 
borne, Repton, Wenlock, Nuneaton and perhaps Carlisle. 1 
The following churches in England are given as dedi- 
cated to St. Aidan: Bamburgh, Benwell, Blackhill, Bos- 
ton, Gateshead, Hartlepool, Harrington, Leeds, Liver- 
pool, Newbiggin, South Shields, Thorneyburn and Wal- 
ton-le-dale, with several others in Scotland. 

3. Finan Succeeds Aidan and Wins Midland 
England 

When Aidan died in 651 the vacancy in the see of 
Lindisfarne was filled by his fellow countryman Finan, 
who was likewise a monk from Iona. Bishop Finan 
speedily revealed himself as a man of action as well as a 
student. He erected a church at Lindisfarne, larger and 
stronger than the temporary structure which had served 
Aidan. Bede says that after the manner of the Irish, he 
made the church not of stone but of hewn oak and covered 
it with reeds ; and the same was afterwards dedicated in 
honorof St. Peter the Apostle by the Reverend Archbishop 
Theodore. Bede's words here have often been taken as evi- 
dence that there were no churches or buildings of stone and 
lime in Ireland in those days. This is an error, as is shown 
elsewhere in this volume. Numerous stone churches and 
buildings existed in Ireland in the earliest days of Chris- 
tianity and some of them are in existence to-day. The 
oldest stone churches in England, Scotland and Wales are 
built in the Irish fashion. Eadbert, later bishop of Lindis- 
farne, took off the thatch at Lindisfarne and covered both 
roof and walls of the church with plates of lead. 

Finan established the monastery of St. Mary's at the 
mouth of the Tyne and another at Gilling on the spot 

1 See Howorth, Golden Days of the Engl. Church, III, 184. 

224 



First Steps of the English in Civilization 

where Oswin had been murdered. He added to the 
growth of the abbey of Streaneshalch, or Whitby, which 
was later the scene of the Paschal controversy. Finan 
crowded unceasing activity into the ten years of his epis- 
copate. From Iona he brought the ecclesiastical lore and 
discipline there taught and practised and set up centers 
for their distribution over the region through which his 
apostolate carried him. Finan was a man of lionhearted 
devotion, which the blind ferocities of the paganism amid 
which he moved could not shake. This element in his 
character is signally illustrated by his successful mission- 
ary work among the wild natives of middle England. 
By his personality and preaching he won over many of 
the Mercian tribes with their chiefs, and with Peada, the 
son of the obdurate Penda, king of the Middle Angles, 
whom he baptized in 653. 1 His chief associates in this 
work were the priests Cedd, Adda, Betti, and Diuma. 
Finan made Diuma, a cultivated Irish Scot, bishop of 
the Middle Angles and Mercia. He likewise consecrated 
Chad and appointed him bishop over the East Saxons, 
whose king, Sigebert, Finan himself baptized. Finan's 
influence is thus seen to have embraced almost the entire 
western half of England and he was largely instrumental 
in the reconquest of the East Saxons who had apostatized. 
He held strongly to the Irish or Celtic side in the Paschal 
controversy despite the friendly remonstrance of Ronan, 
an Irishman who had lived in Gaul and Italy and had 
learned to conform to the Roman custom. 

Bede, relating how the province of the Midland Angles 
became Christian, tells us that King Peada, son of Penda, 
was baptized by Bishop Finan, with all his earls and 
soldiers and their servants that came along with him 

1 Hist. Eccl. ni, XXI. 

16 22 5 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

at a noted village belonging to the king called At the 
Wall. And having received four priests who for their 
erudition and good life were deemed proper to instruct 
and baptize his nation, he returned home with much joy. 
These priests were Cedd and Adda and Betti and Diuma. 
The aforesaid priests, arriving in the province with the 
prince, preached the word and were willingly listened to; 
and many, as well of the nobility as of the common sort, 
renouncing the abominations of idolatry, were baptized 
daily. 

4. Re-converts Apostate East Saxons 

When King Peada was slain and Oswy succeeded him 
Diuma was made a bishop of the Midland Angles, as 
also of the Mercians, being ordained by Bishop Finan; 
for the scarcity of priests, says Bede, was the occasion that 
one prelate was set over two nations. Having in a short 
time converted many people, Diuma died among the Mid- 
land Angles in the country called Feppingum; and Ceol- 
lach, also of the Irish nation, succeeded him in the bish- 
opric. This prelate not long after left his bishopric and 
returned to the island of Hii or Iona. Ceollach's suc- 
cessor in the bishopric was Trumhere, an Englishman, 
taught and ordained bishop by the Irish, being abbot of 
the monastery which was called Ingethlingum. 1 

At that time also Sigebert, king of the East Saxons, who 
had cast off the faith when they expelled Mellitus their 
bishop, continues Bede, was baptized with his friends 
by Bishop Finan in the same king's village of At the 
Wall. King Sigebert returned to the seat of his kingdom 
requesting of King Oswy that he would give some teach- 
ers, who might convert his nation. Oswy accordingly, 

1 Leeds, Hist. Eccl. Ill, XXIV. 

226 



First Steps of the English in Civilization 

sending into the province of the Midland Angles, invited 
to him the man of God, Cedd, who with his brothers had 
been trained in Ireland, and giving him another priest 
for his companion, sent them to preach to the East Saxons. 
When these two traveling to all parts of the country had 
gathered a numerous church it happened that Cedd 
returned home and came to Lindisfarne to confer with 
Finan, who, rinding how successful he had been in the 
work of the gospel, made him bishop of the church of 
the East Saxons, calling two other bishops to assist at 
the ordination. Cedd, having received the episcopal dig- 
nity, returned to his province, and pursuing the work he 
had begun with more ample authority built churches in 
several places, ordaining priests and deacons to assist him 
in the work of faith and the ministry of baptizing, espe- 
cially in the city of Ithancester as also in what is named 
Tilaburg, or Tilbury, where gathering a flock of servants 
of Christ he taught them to observe the discipline of 
regular life. 1 

Cedd often returned to his own country, Northumbria, 
and there built the monastery of Lestingau, or Lastingham, 
establishing therein the religious customs of Lindisfarne. 
There Cedd died and left the monastery to be governed 
after him by his brother Ceadda, or Chad, who was after- 
wards made bishop first of York and then of Litchfield. 
For the four brothers, Cedd and Cynebil, Celin and Chad, 
were all celebrated priests, all educated in Ireland and 
at Lindisfarne and two of them became bishops. 

5. Rise of the Easter Controversy 

Prominent also in England in the time of Finan was 
a traveled and scholarly Irishman of the name of Ronan. 

iHist. Eccl. Ill, XXII. 

227 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

^^^^^^^^^■i ■■■■■■■ ■■■■■ ■ i i — i ■■■!■ — — ^ — ■ — b^^w^— ^^^m 

In the controversy which raged around the observance of 
Easter, Ronan was a zealous defender of the Roman view, 
which had long before been adopted by people in the 
southern half of Ireland, but which was strongly opposed 
by those who clung to the tradition of Columcille. 
Ronan, 1 Bede tells us, instructed in ecclesiastical truth, 
either in France or Italy, disputed with Finan, con- 
vincing many or at least inducing them to make a more 
strict inquiry after the truth; yet he could not prevail 
upon Finan, but on the contrary made him the more 
inveterate by reproof and a profest opposer of the truth, 
being, adds Bede, of a hot and violent temper. 2 

Ronan may have been identical with the Romanus, 
mentioned by Bede, a Kentish priest and chaplain to 
Queen Banfleda who followed the Roman mode. The 
different observance created a decided confusion. Thus 
it happened that Easter was twice kept in one year; when 
the king, having ended the time of fasting, kept his 
Easter, according to the Irish fashion, the queen and her 
followers were still fasting and celebrating Palm Sunday. 
This difference, says Bede, whilst Aidan lived, was 
patiently tolerated by all men, for he was deservedly 
beloved by all, and things were allowed to go on during 
the episcopacy of Finan, but when he died and Colman, 
who was also sent out of Ireland, came to be bishop, a great 
controversy rose. This reached the ears of King Oswy 
and his son Aldfrid: for Oswy, having been instructed 
and baptized by the Irish and being very perfectly skilled 
in their language, thought, says Bede, nothing better than 

i Mabillon argues this Ronan very probably was a certain "Peregrinus ex 
genere Scottorum," who is called Romanus in a charter reciting the founda- 
tion of an ecclesiatical establishment at Mazeroles on the River Vienne in 
Picardy, of which he and fellow peregrini were the first occupants. (Annal. 
Ord. S. Bened., i, 474, and J. Stevenson, Bede 426, note; see also Gall. Christ., 
ii, 1222.) 

2 Hist. EccL III, XXV. 

228 



First Steps of the English in Civilization 

what they taught. But Aldfrid, instructed by Wilfrid, 
who had learned the ecclesiastical doctrine in Rome, 
thought differently, and so the synod of Whitby was held 
and the Roman observance of Easter adopted. In the 
controversy Bede tells us that the Abbess Hilda and her 
followers were for the Irish, who were in the wrong, as 
was also the venerable Bishop Cedd, who in the council 
was most careful interpreter for both parties. Agilbert the 
Frank, bishop of the West Saxons, who had been educated 
in Ireland, probably in the South, took the Roman side. 1 
The Breviary of Aberdeen says of Finan, who died 
February 9, 661, that he was "a man of venerable life, a 
bishop of great sanctity, an eloquent teacher of unbeliev- 
ing races, remarkable for his training in virtue and his 
liberal education, surpassing all his equals in every man- 
ner of knowledge, as well as in circumspection and pru- 
dence, but chiefly devoting himself to good works, and 
presenting in his life a most apt example of virtue." 

lHist. Eccl. Ill, XXV. 



229 



CHAPTER XVIII 

FRUITS OF THE IRISH APOSTOLATE 
IN ENGLAND 

i. "Celtic" Usages and the Synod of Whitby. 2. High Birth and 
Breeding of Irish Founders. 3. Frugality and Devotion of the 
Irish Clerics. 4. Colman Founds "Mayo of the Saxons." 

i. "Celtic" Usages and the Synod of Whitby 

THE third bishop of Lindisfarne was Colman, the 
last of the three remarkable Irishmen who estab- 
lished and filled the see. It was during his epis- 
copate that the Paschal controversy culminated in the 
synod of Whitby, which settled it as far as Northumbria 
was concerned. 

No attempt need be made here to describe in detail the 
proceedings at the synod. The original account is to 
be found in Bede and accounts based on that of Bede in 
almost every English history that has been printed. The 
result of it is well known. In sorrow but with decision 
Colman resigned his see and with thirty disciples, includ- 
ing both Irish and English, departed from England. 

Irishmen in great number still taught, nevertheless, in 
England, particularly in the South. The greater part of 
Ireland had thirty years before conformed to the Roman 
custom 1 and even in the North and in Scotland what 
now are called "Celtic" usages — the term was unknown 
in medieval days — were not in universal vogue. The 

1 As early as 59S A. D., Columbanus writing 1 from France is found ex- 
postulating with Pope Gregory on the subject and endeavoring to win the 
pontiff over to the Irish view. His letter is found among those of St. Greg- 
ory's. Epist.1 CXXVII, Bk. IX, Registrum Epistolarum. 

23O 



Fruits of the Irish Apostolate in England 

controversy raged round matters of ritual and did not deal 
with fundamentals. 1 

The language of Bede, who championed the winning 
cause in the dispute, has exaggerated the actual extent 
of the change from the Ionian to the Roman use. The time 
of keeping Easter was of course altered, as it had already- 
been altered in the greater part of the Irish church. In 
other matters, such as the tonsure and the special uses in 
regard to the canonical hours, the old fashions continued 
largely to prevail. It is not credible that in the Irish 
monasteries in England there should have been violent 
changes in matters such as the particular form of the 
tonsure or of the special psalms or collects used at special 
times. 

While the Irish bishops and missionaries in England 
did not do everything, they did a great deal, and it is well 
to acknowledge what they did before dwelling, as some 
writers do, on what they left undone. Had it not been for 
the Paschal controversy they doubtless would have gone 
much farther with their work. To pretend they did not 
organize dioceses is nonsense. St. Patrick had divided 
Ireland into dioceses, numerous indeed, and modeled 
according to clan and territory, and had forbidden one 
bishop to act in the diocese of another. Aidan, Finan 
and Colman, as far as they went, followed in England 

i The most striking literary product of the Easter controversy was the 
letter addressed by Cummian, writing from Clonfert in 640, to Segenus, abbot 
of Iona. From it we learn that the Irish government had in 634 sent a 
commission of representative Irish scholars to Rome to get the full facts 
on the spot. The report brought back by them won most of Ireland over 
to the Roman custom. Cummian's work is a marvelous production. "It 
proves the fact to demonstration that in the first half of the seventh century, 
there was a wide range of Greek learning-, not ecclesiastical merely, but 
chronological, astronomical and philosophical, away at Durrow in the very 
centre of the Bog of Allen" (G. Stokes, Roy. I. Acad., Proceedings, 1892, 
p. 195). The oldest copy of Cummian's work is preserved in a ninth century 
Irish manuscript at St. Gall. Migne reproduces it (Patrologia Latina, 
LXXXVII, cols. 969-978), and Healy gives a translated digest of it (Ireland's 
Ancient Schools and Scholars). 

231 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

the plan of St. Patrick. Had time been allowed them 
they and their successors doubtless would have done what 
Theodore subsequently accomplished in their place. 
Theodore's work is alleged by historians, the one slav- 
ishly echoing the other, to have shown the superior organ- 
izing genius of the Roman. The allegation merely betrays 
the imitative prejudice of the historian. Theodore was 
not a Roman ; Augustine was. Augustine accomplished 
far less than the Irishmen. Theodore had the work both 
of Augustine and the Irishmen to build upon. He did 
a great work, but his work was made possible only by 
the work of his predecessors. As Stubbs remarks, Theo- 
dore could have done very little if the Irish had not pre- 
pared the way. 

2. High Birth and Breeding of Irish Founders 

An attempt has been made by some English historians 
to depict Wilfrid, archbishop of York, who appears to 
have had a kink in his character which prevented sus- 
tained cooperation in any work with others, as a sort of 
grand seigneur and Cardinal Richelieu, a polished and 
fastidious ecclesiastical statesman and patron of arts and 
letters, in contrast with the rude but ascetic Irish enthu- 
siasts of Lindisfarne. The attempt is absurd in the last 
degree. It is true that Wilfrid must have broadened the 
education he received at Lindisfarne by his travels on the 
Continent where the chief centers of culture were the 
numerous Irish foundations. But it is also true that 
Wilfrid was but one remove from the unwashed savage, 
while the Irish monks who civilized him, the leaders of 
them nearly all of high birth, and the greatest travelers 
of their age, were representatives of the Celtic civiliza- 
tion that was old and mellow even before it was trans- 

232 



Fruits of the Irish Apostolate in England 

formed by Christianity. Men like Aidan, Finan and 
Colman were representative of the highest taste and 
culture of their time. There were in that age no more 
cultivated, no better disciplined, no more highly polished, 
men in the world. The trouble with this type of English 
writer is that he knows very little of the wonderland 
represented in Irish literature and the old Irish civiliza- 
tion. In projecting his thought into an earlier age, he 
carries his modern environment with him and babbles 
in phrases of hackneyed superciliousness, where a mood 
of reverential appreciation would be proper to him. 

Indeed the more prominent Irish schoolmen and 
monastic founders were nearly all men of high birth 
affiliated with the houses of those potent chiefs to whom 
the annalists give the title of king. The tone of authority 
which men like Columbanus and Columcille assume in 
addressing kings and even popes, the facile assurance with 
which men like Sedulius Scotus and Johannes Scotus 
Eriugena address the monarchs of their day and min- 
gle in court circles with the highest civil and 
ecclesiastical dignitaries, the even calmness with which 
Aidan, Finan and their associates receive the pros- 
trations of English kings and nobles, the directness with 
which Irishmen on the Continent attain the episcopal or 
abbatial dignity in days when bishops and abbots were 
the real rulers of the people, their habitual composure in 
the presence of demonstrations of popular reverence that 
might have moved the hearts of kings and potentates — 
these are the traits of men accustomed to honor from child- 
hood, men whose natural milieu was the association of 
the great and learned, and in whom an innate pride of 
birth was so habitual as to be second nature. Iona is 
indeed one of the palmary instances of the association 

233 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

in Irish civilization of ecclesiastical authority with social 
dignity. The line of abbots had many of the character- 
istics of a royal dynasty, 1 so that a genealogical table made 
out by antiquarians contains fifteen abbots of Iona who, 
including Columcille, were all related to the reigning 
families of Ulster, and descendants of the royal Conal 
Culban, head of the Cinell Conaill. 2 

3. Frugality and Devotion of the Irish Clerics 

Colman was bishop of Lindisfarne three years. Fol- 
lowing the synod of Whitby he resigned his see and 
returned to Ireland, taking with him his Irish and English 
followers. When Colman was gone back to his own coun- 
try, says Bede, Tuda was made bishop of the Northum- 
brians in his place, having also the ecclesiastical tonsure 
of his crown, according to the custom of that province 
and observing the Catholic time of Easter. He was a 
good and religious man but governed his church a very 
short time; he came out of Ireland whilst Colman was 
yet bishop, and, both by word and example, diligently 
taught all persons those things that appertain to the faith 
and truth. But, continues Bede, Eata, who was abbot of 
the monastery of Melrose, which Aidan had established, 
a most reverend and meek man, was appointed abbot over 
the brethren that stayed in the church of Lindisfarne, 
when the Irishmen went away. Colman, on his departure, 
it appears, requested and obtained this of King Oswy, 
because Eata was one of Aidan's twelve boys of the 
English nation, whom he received when first made bishop 

1 See "A Genealogical Table of the Early Abbots of Hy, showing Their 
Affinity to One Another and Their Connections with the Chief Families of 
Tyrconnell, Constructed from the Naehmseanchus," by Dr. Reeves; "Irish 
Pedigrees," 2 vols., by John O'Hart, passim; Hill Burton, History of Scot- 
land, I, 247. 

2"Walahfrid Strabo (843) dwells on the high birth of Blaithmac, who 
belonged to the family of Columcille; Regali de stirpe natus summumque 
decorem nobilitatis habens florebat regius heres (Poetae Latini A. C. II, 297). 

234 



Fruits of the Irish Apostolate in England 

there, to be instructed in Christ; for the king much loved 
Bishop Colman on account of his singular discretion. 
This is the same Eata who not long after was made bishop 
of the same church of Lindisfarne. Colman carried home 
with him part of the bones of the most reverend father 
Aidan and left part of them in the church where he pre- 
sided, ordering them to be interred in the sacristy. 1 

The place which Bishop Colman governed, Bede goes 
on to say, showed how frugal he and his predecessors 
were: there were very few houses besides the church 
found at their departure; indeed no more than was barely 
sufficient for their daily residence; they had also no 
money, but cattle; for if they received any money from 
rich persons they immediately gave it to the poor; there 
being no need to gather money or provide houses for the 
entertainment of the great men of the world, for such 
never resorted to the church, except to pray and to hear 
the word of God. The king himself, when opportunity 
offered, came only with five or six servants and, having 
performed his devotions in the church, departed. But 
if they happened to take a repast there they were satis- 
fied with only the plain and daily food of the brethren 
and required no more; for the whole care of those teach- 
ers of God was to serve God, not the world, to feed the 
soul, not the body. 

In all which observations of Bede we seem to feel an 
undercurrent of reflection and reproach on the manners 
of the times in which he lived as compared to that earlier 
period when the personal influence of these bishops and 
teachers was paramount in the land. 2 

iHist. Eccl. Ill, XXV. 

2 Hist. Eccl. Ill, XXVI. Bede, like Alcuin, exhibits a chronic pessimism 
in respect to the English natives. In the commentary on St. Luke, written 
between 709 and 716, he expresses his fear lest the sins of the natives bring 
upon them yet sorer punishment (Peiora iamiamque superuentura formidamus 
— Opp. xi, 253). His letter to Egbert, written in the last year of his life 
(735), is one long lament over the evils of his time. His works abound 
in expressions of his gloom in the midst of the aboriginal chaos. 

235 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

For these reasons, Bede says, the religious habit was 
at that time in great veneration, so that wheresoever any 
clergyman or monk happened to come he was joyfully 
received by all persons as the servant of God; if they 
should meet him upon the way they ran to him, and, bow- 
ing, were glad to be signed with his hand or blessed with 
his voice. Great attention was also paid to their exhorta- 
tions; and on Sundays they flocked eagerly to the church 
or the monasteries, not to feed their bodies, but to hear 
the word of God; and if any priest happened to come into 
a village the inhabitants flocked together to hear from 
him the word of life; for the priests and clergymen went 
into the village on no other account than to preach, bap- 
tize, visit the sick, and to take care of souls; they were 
so free from worldly avarice that none of them received 
lands and possessions for building monasteries unless they 
were compelled to do so by the temporal authorities; 
which custom was for some time after observed in all the 
churches of the Northumbrians. 1 

4. Colman Founds "Mayo of the Saxons" 

Colman by no means lost his interest in the English 
after leaving his English see. He dwelt in northern 
Britain for a couple of years and established some 
churches there. He then went over to Ireland with the 
English disciples who had remained faithful to him and 
settled in 668 at Inisboffin in the principality of northern 
Hy-Fiachra in the division now called county Mayo. 
Less than three years later he established in Mayo the 
abbey exclusively for the accommodation of English stu- 
dents which subsequently attained celebrity as "Mayo of 
the Saxons." 

iHist. Eccl. Ill, XXVI. 

236 



Fruits of the Irish Apostolate in England 

These bald facts Bede invests with an air of picturesque- 
ness and adds certain details. Colman, he says, departing 
from Britain, took with him all the Irish he had assem- 
bled in the isle of Lindisfarne, and also about thirty of 
the English nation, who had been all instructed in the 
monastic life; and leaving some brothers in his church, 
he repaired first to the isle of Hii (Iona) whence he 
had been sent to preach to the English nation. After- 
wards he retired to a small Irish island of Inisboffin or, 
as Bede calls it, Inisbofinde, the Island of the White 
Heifer. Arriving there, Bede tells us, he built a monastery 
and placed in it the monks he had brought of both nations ; 
who, not agreeing among themselves, by reason of the 
Irish in the summer season, when the harvest was to be 
brought in, leaving the monastery wandered about 
through places with which they were acquainted; but 
returned again the next winter, and would have what 
the English had provided to be in common. Colman 
sought to put an end to this dissension and, traveling 
about far and near, he found a place in the island of 
Ireland fit to build a monastery, which, says Bede, in 
the Irish language is called Mageo, and bought a small 
part of it of the earl to whom it belonged to build his 
monastery thereon ; upon condition that the monks resid- 
ing there should pray to our Lord for him who had let 
them have the place. Then building a monastery with 
the assistance of the earl and all the neighbors, he placed 
the English there, leaving the Irish in the aforesaid island. 

Bede tells us that this monastery continued up to his 
day possest by the English inhabitants; being the same 
that, grown up from small beginning to be very large, 
was generally called Mageo; and as all things had long 
before been brought under a better method (referring to 

237 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

Easter controversy) it contained an exemplary society 
of monks, who were gathered there from the province of 
the English, and lived by the labor of their hands, after 
the example of the venerable fathers under a rule and a 
canonical abbot in much continency and singleness of 
life. 1 

Meanwhile the good work was going on in other parts 
of Ireland. At the date of the pestilence of 664, says 
Bede, "many of the nobility and of the lower ranks of 
the English nation were there (in Ireland) at that time, 
who, in the days of Bishops Finan and Colman, forsak- 
ing their native isle, retired thither, either for the sake 
of divine studies or of a more continent life; and some 
of them presently devoted themselves to the monastic 
life, others chose rather to apply themselves to study, 
going about from one master's cell to another. The 
Irish willingly received them all and took care to sup- 
ply them with food as also to furnish them with books 
to read and their teaching gratis." 2 

These words are on many grounds well worthy of 
meditation by Englishmen. 

iHist. Eccl. IV, IV. 

2 Hist. Eccl. Ill, XXVII, Giles, one of the first translators of Bede, ap- 
pends the following 1 curious note to this revealing- passage. "The reader, 
who has heard much of the early civilization of Ireland, will rememher that 
the description given in the text applied to a period no earlier than the 
seventh century" (Bede, Eccl. Hist., p. 163). 



2 3 8 



CHAPTER XIX 

EXTENDING OPERATIONS OVER 
ALL ENGLAND 

I. Sentiment of Idolatry for Ireland and the Irish. 2. Among the 
East Anglians and West Saxons. 3. Irish Channels of Entry into 
Britain. 4. Fursa of the Visions. 5. Diuma, Chad, and Ceallach in 
Mercia. 

i. Sentiment of Idolatry for Ireland and the Irish 

IT is no exaggeration to say that the Anglo-Saxons 
during all this period looked on the Irish with a 
feeling akin to idolatry and the sentiment prevailed 
among all classes, learned and unlearned, rich and poor, 
from the king and bishop to the meanest churl. To them 
all Ireland was a land of enchantment in which nothing 
foul could live, while articles brought out of Ireland 
carried healing powers with them. 

The words of Bede are eloquent on this point. Ireland, 
he says, was a land "for wholesomeness and serenity of 
climate far surpassing Britain," a land so benign that 
"no reptiles are found there and no snake can live there, 
for tho often carried thither out of Britain, as soon as 
the ship comes near the shore and the scent of the air 
reaches them, they die." So wonderful a land was Ireland 
that all things in the land or brought out of it served as a 
charm against poison. The island was a land "flowing 
with milk and honey," full of vines, fish, fowl, deer and 
goats. The tradition was widespread. 1 To King Aldf rid, 
who knew Ireland from study and travel, it was "Inisfail, 
the Fair" too noble and nearly celestial to be honored in 

iHist. Eccl. I, I. 

239 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

prose, to which poetry in the meter of the ancients could 
alone do justice. To William of Malmesbury centuries 
later the Irish were "a race in genuine simplicity and 
guiltless of every crime." 

We can measure the depth of the veneration then felt 
by the Englishman for everything Irish by the curious 
superstitions which the sentiment inspired. Thus even 
in Bede, much the wisest and best informed of his nation, 
we find it taking the form of a belief that even the very 
soil on articles issuing from Ireland had a virtue which 
made it an antidote against disease: "In short we have 
known that when some persons have been bitten by ser- 
pents the scrapings of leaves of books that were brought 
out of Ireland being put into water and given them to 
drink have immediately expelled the spreading poison 
and assuaged the swelling." 1 Whatever other effect the 
Synod of Whitby had, it clearly did not diminish the 
respect entertained by the English for everything Irish. 
This English sentiment of worship in respect to Ireland 
did much to keep peace and friendship between the two 
countries unruffled during the Anglo-Saxon period when 
the aborigines of the Heptarchy were incessantly assault- 
ing each other. Under Ecgfrid occurred an insignificant 
raid on the Irish coast, which Bede records with horror 
and lamentation. Alcuin, in company with Bede, takes 
note of the fact of Irish benevolence towards the English 
in that epoch of their feebleness and distraction, which 
made them an easy prey to all who attacked them. 2 

2. Among the East Anglians and West Saxons 

Meanwhile Sigebert, king of the East Angles, who had 
lived in banishment in France, being desirous of imitating 

iHist. Eccl. I, I. 

2 "Scotorum gens Anglis semper arnica" (Frobenius edition, II, 250, vers. 
839). 

24O 



Extending Operations Over All England 

the educational institutions he had seen in that country, 
set up a school for youth to be instructed in literature 
and was assisted therein by Bishop Felix, who came to 
him from Kent and who furnished him with masters and 
teachers after the manner of the country. 

The only schools of any account in France at that 
period were the Irish foundations of Columbanus and 
his disciples, and it was doubtless in one of these that 
Sigebert had studied. Bishop Felix, who presided over 
the see of East Anglia for seventeen years, appears to 
have been a Burgundian and very probably graduated 
from one of Columbanus's Burgundian foundations, 
Luxeuil, Annegray, Remiremont or Fontains. Already 
the disciples of Columbanus were active in Picardy, estab- 
lishing monasteries and schools, and doubtless some of 
them crossed the channel into England. From them the 
masters and teachers of Felix were very probably drawn. 
It was while Sigebert governed the kingdom that Fursey 
and his associates came out of Ireland into East Anglia. 
His honorable reception by the king and subsequent in- 
fluence in the province were, it may be inferred, due in 
part to the king's friendship with his Irish instructors in 
Gaul. Felixstowe in Suffolk is named after this Felix. 
After his death his deacon Thomas was consecrated by 
Honorius as bishop. The West Saxons, formerly called 
Gewissae, Bede tells us, received the word of God by the 
preaching of Bishop Birinus, and of his successors Agil- 
bert and Eleutherius. Birinus came into Britain in the 
reign of Cynegils by the advice of Pope Honorius, hav- 
ing promised in his presence that he would sow the holy 
faith in the inner parts beyond the dominions of the 
English where no other preacher had been before him. 
Hereupon he received the episcopal consecration from 

17 241 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

Asterius, bishop of Genoa; but on his arrival in Britain 
he entered first the nation of the Gewissae and, finding 
all there most confirmed pagans, he thought it better 
to preach the word of God there, then to proceed further 
to seek for others to preach to. Now as he preached in 
the aforesaid province it happened that the king himself, 
having been catechized, was baptized together with his 
people, and Oswald, the most holy and victorious king 
of the Northumbrians, being present, received him as 
he came forth from baptism and by an alliance first 
adopted him thus regenerated for his son, and then took 
his daughter in marriage. The two kings gave to the 
bishop the city called Dorcic there to settle his episcopal 
see; where, having built and consecrated churches and by 
his labor called many to God, he departed this life and 
was buried in the same city; but many years after, when 
Hedda was bishop, he was translated thence to the city 
of Winchester and laid in the church of the blessed apos- 
tles, Peter and Paul. 1 

This Birinus appears to have been an Irishman, who 
had passed a number of years on the Continent. Birinus 
would seem to be a Romanized form of the Irish name 
Brain, which is pronounced and usually Anglicized 
Byrne, Burn, or Byron. 

Birinus may have been associated, as Bishop Forbes of 
Brechin suggests, with the Irish Scots of the west of North 
Britain, where the parish of Kilbirnie is suggestive of his 
name. There is also a Kilbirnie loch in the parish of 
Beith; there is a parish of Dumbarney in Strathearn, and 
his name may also be preserved in the spur of the Chil- 
terns, called Berin's Hill. 

Birinus was not succeeded by an Irishman, but he was 

iHist. Eccl. Ill, VII. 

242 



Extending Operations Over All England 

succeeded, as Bede tells us, by one who had been trained 
in Ireland. This was the Frank, Agilbert, who figured 
at Whitby in the Paschal controversy. The son of 
Cynegils, Cornwalch, had refused Christianity at the 
hands of Birinus and was banished to East Anglia where 
he got the faith in due time. Bede says: "But when 
Cornwalch was to his kingdom there came into that 
province out of Ireland a certain bishop called Agilbert, 
by nation a Frank, who had livedo long time in Ireland 
for the purpose of reading the scriptures. This bishop 
came of his own accord to serve this king and to preach 
to him the word of life. The king, observing his erudi- 
tion and industry, desired him to accept an episcopal see 
and stay there as his bishop. Agilbert complied with the 
prince's request and presided over those people many 
years. At length the king, who understood none but the 
language of the Saxons, grown weary of the bishop's 
barbarous tongue, brought to the province another bishop 
of his own nation, whose name was Wini, who had been 
ordained in France." 1 Bede's use of the word "barbar- 
ous" here is significant and somewhat amusing. We are 
to assume that he is using it in the sense of "foreign," as 
on other occasions, or is reproducing the standpoint of 
some other Latin writer. Even the Frankish speech must 
at that time have shown greater development than the 
dialect of the West Saxons, which Agilbert, tho many 
years in the country, had disdained to learn. 

3. Irish Channels of Entry into Britain 

While Aidan and his associates were laboring in 
Northumbria and Mercia, Fursa and his disciples were 
laying their foundations in East Anglia and Dicuil was 

iHist. Eccl. Ill, VII. 

243 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

preaching among the Saxons of the South. Only a few 
years later we find the accomplished Maeldubh, or Mael- 
duf, dispensing lore to the West Saxon youth in an Irish 
foundation, round which was to rise a cathedral and 
town which were to carry his name to future ages. Thus 
during the seventh century in the four corners of England, 
in the south and in the north, in the west and in the east, 
Irish missionaries were bringing the blessings of learning 
and religion to the English heathen. We are not to sup- 
pose that the Irish teachers whose names have come down 
to us were alone in their work. Maelduf was not the 
only Irish missionary and scholar established at Malmes- 
bury. He was undoubtedly the chief of the learned com- 
pany or he would not have had the distinction of having 
his name perpetuated in that of the town which he made 
the scene of his labors and of which he may be called the 
founder and apostle. Thus while Wessex was temporarily 
won by Birinus, its complete conversion as well as the 
winning of central Britain, the reconquest of Essex, and 
the first evangelization of the wild South Saxons, were 
the work of other Irishmen. 

Not only through the North did the Irish teachers 
descend on Britain, they entered it from several direc- 
tions, some to pass through it as travelers on their way to 
Rome and Palestine, others to preach and found schools 
in the island. The journey of Fursa of the Visions, who 
chose East Anglia as the scene of his labors, appears to 
have taken the route through what is now South Wales. 
Fursa was accompanied not only by his brothers Foillan 
and Ultan, two remarkable men, almost the equals of their 
brother in celebrity, but by a band of other Irish monks, 
Gobhan, or Gobain, and Dicuil among them, at least half 
a dozen of whom later won their laurels and have since 

244 



Extending Operations Over All England 

been held in veneration 'in France. Their journey and 
reception were felicitous. "Landing upon foreign 
shores," says the old chronicle, "Fursa and his companions 
are borne through Britain to Saxony (i. e., East Anglia), 
where, being honorably received by King Sigebert at 
Burghcastle, he softened the hearts of the barbarians." 1 

Fursa arrived in East Anglia contemporaneously with 
the arrival of Aidan in Northumbria, and Sigebert, ruler 
of the Angles of that region, put at the disposal of the 
distinguished Irishman a tract of land at Cnobheresburg. 
There Fursa and his associates built a monastery in the 
Irish fashion within the enclosure of a Roman fort — 
Burghcastle in Suffolk — surrounded by woods and over- 
looking the sea. Using this place as headquarters the 
Irish missionaries labored for years converting and 
instructing the natives. 2 

Tribal wars then rent the population of East Anglia 
and left them little leisure or disposition to improve their 
minds or manners, or to listen to the words of religion. 
But the indefatigable and lionhearted Irishmen had a way 
of making most of the least hopeful material. Combin- 
ing firmness with kindness, they gradually brought the 
aborigines to reason and put them through their first paces 
in the direction of ordered living and moral restraint. 
Sigebert was renewed in his fervor by Fursa. The devoted 
Irishman labored without pause except for the interval 
of one year of retirement and did not abandon his task 
till tribal warfare growing ever more widespread made 
it impossible to continue, obliging him to transfer the 
theater of his operations to Gaul, after an apostolate in 
England of about fifteen years. 3 



iVita S. Fursae. 

2 Hist. Eccl. Ill, XIX. 

3 Hist. Eccl. Ill, XIX. 



245 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

4. FURSA OF THE VISIONS 

Bede describes Fursa as a holy man, renowned both 
for his words and actions, and remarkable for singular 
virtues, being desirous of living a stranger for our Lord 
wherever an opportunity should offer. Among the East 
Angles he performed his usual employment of preaching 
the gospel and by the example of his virtue and the effi- 
ciency of his discourse he converted many unbelievers to 
Christ and confirmed in his faith and love those that 
already believed. 

Here he fell into some infirmity of body and was 
thought worthy, continues Bede, to see a vision of God; 
in which he was admonished diligently to proceed in the 
ministry of the word he had undertaken and indef atigably 
to continue his usual watching and prayers; inasmuch as 
his end was certain but the hour of it would be uncertain. 
Being confirmed by this vision, Fursa applied himself 
with all speed to build a monastery on the ground which 
had been given him by King Sigebert and to establish 
regular discipline therein. This monastery was pleas- 
antly situated in the woods and with the sea not far off; 
afterwards Anna, king of that province, and the nobility 
embellished it with more stately buildings and donations. 

Fursa was of noble Irish blood, says Bede, but much 
more noble in mind than in birth. From his boyish years 
he had particularly applied himself to reading sacred 
books and following monastic discipline, and he carefully 
practised all he learned was to be done. In short he built 
himself a monastery wherein he might with more freedom 
indulge in his heavenly studies. There falling sick, as 
the book about his life informs us, says Bede, he fell into 
a trance and, quitting his body from the evening till the 
cock crew, he was found worthy to behold the choir of 

246 



Extending Operations Over All England 

angels and to hear the praises which are sung in heaven. 
Bede then goes on to tell us concerning what Fursa saw 
and heard in the vision, the accounts of which later became 
so celebrated. 

We are told that Fursa, after building his monastery in 
East Anglia and preaching with much success, became 
desirous of ridding himself of all business of the world, and 
even of the monastery itself, and forthwith left the same 
and the care of souls to his brother Foillan and the priests 
Cobham and Dicuil and, being himself free from all 
that was worldly, resolved to end his life as a hermit. 
He had another brother called Ultan, who, after a long 
monastical probation, had also adopted the life of an 
anchorite. Repairing all alone to him, he lived a whole 
year with him in continence and prayer and labored daily 
with his hands. Afterwards seeing the province of East 
Anglia in confusion by the irruption of the pagan Mer- 
cians under Penda, who slew King Sigebert and slaugh- 
tered his army, and presaging that the monasteries would 
be also in danger, Fursa left all things in order and sailed 
over to France, and, being there honorably entertained by 
Clovis, king of the Franks, accomplished a great work. 
The facts related concerning Fursa, his work and visions, 
Bede tells us, he found in a little book about his life, a 
book he advises everybody to read believing that much 
spiritual profit would be thereby derived. 1 

When Fursa arrived in East Anglia, Algeis, with Cor- 
bican, and his servant Rodalgus, went on to Corbei and 
thence to Laon, while Foillan, Ultan, Gobain, Decuil, 
Etto and Madelgisilus remained behind with Fursa. 
They all appear in France later on, and two of them gave 
their names to French localities, St. Algise and St. Gobain 

iHist. Eccl. Ill, XIX. The life of Fursa to which Bede refers Is extant. 

247 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

— the forest figured much in despatches during the recent 
great war. Fursa left his girdle at Burghcastle and 
this the people afterwards lovingly covered with gold and 
jealously preserved. 

5. Diuma, Chad, and Ceallach in Mercia 

Meanwhile in Mercia and among the Mid-Angles 
Diuma, Chad, Ceadda, Ceallach and their associates were 
duplicating the work of Aidan, Finan and Colman in 
the North and Fursa and Dicuil in the South and East. 
Diuma was the Irish priest who was made bishop of the 
Mid-Angles by Finan. His associates were either Irish 
or had been educated in Ireland. The nationality of 
Chad and his three brothers Ceada, Cynebil and Caelin, 
has been the subject of dispute. Bede describes them as 
Northumbrian; other writers declare them to have been 
Irish. They had all however been educated in Ireland; 
they may have been among the twelve boys of Aidan; 
and they showed their training in strenuous emulation of 
their great Irish examplar. Diuma, who was bishop both 
of Mercia and the Middle Angles, was succeeded, as has 
been noted, by his countryman, Ceallach, who was in turn 
succeeded by Trumhere, an Angle or Saxon educated by 
the Irish. Trumhere founded a monastery in Gethlingen 
(Gilling) near Richmond. 

Chad, says Bede, "was one of the disciples of Aidan 
and endeavored to instruct his people by the same actions 
and behavior according to his and his brother Cedd's 
example. Wilfrid also being made a bishop came into 
Britain and in like manner by his doctrine brought into 
the English church many rules of Catholic observance. 
Whence it followed that the Catholic institutions daily 
gained strength and all the Irish that dwelt in England 

248 



Extending Operations Over All England 

either conformed to these or returned into their own 
country." 1 

Ceadda built a monastery at Talburgh, or Tilbury, at 
the mouth of the Thames. Chad founded Lestingham 
near Whitby and Itanchester, now Froshwell, in Essex. 
His celebrity is founded on his work as bishop of the 
extensive diocese of Mercia of which Finan fixed the see 
at Lichfield, so called in one view from the number of 
martyrs buried there under Maximinanus Herudeus, and, 
in another, from the marshy nature of the surrounding 
country. Bede assures us that Chad zealously devoted 
himself to the laborious functions of his charge, visiting 
his diocese on foot, preaching the gospel, seeking out the 
poorest and most abandoned natives in the meanest hovels 
that he might instruct them. Like many of the Irish saints 
his name became associated with wells and he became in 
England the patron saint of medieval springs. Around his 
resting place arose the cathedral and city of Lichfield. 

iHist. Eccl. Ill, XXVIII. 



249 



CHAPTER XX 

CENTERS OF IRISH INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND 

I. Maelduf, Founder of Malmesbury, and Other Irishmen in Wessex. 
2. Founders of Abingdon, Chichester, and Lincoln. 3. Aldhelm 
and English Students in Ireland. 4. Correspondence between 
Aldhelm and Cellan. 

i. Maelduf, Founder of Malmesbury, and Other 
Irishmen in Wessex 

IN the meantime among the West Saxons, Maeldubh, 
or Maelduf, "eruditione philosophus, professione 
monachus," as he is described by William of Malmes- 
bury — had established the monastery and school of which 
Aldhelm, later Bishop of Sherborne, was to be the chief 
ornament. It was probably after the battle of Bradford- 
on-Avon in 652 that Maelduf, whom Camden describes 
as an Irish Scot, settled in the forest tract that had been 
torn from the Britons and that had borne the name of 
Ingelborne before it bore his own. Dependencies in 
course of time branched forth at Wareham, on the south 
coast near Poole, Bradford-on-Avon, Frome, on the banks 
of the little river of that name, and Sherborne. The 
churches raised at these spots were the first instances of 
building in Wessex. At Bradford-on-Avon a replica of 
one of the little stone Irish churches, dating from the 
earliest days of Christianity, is still to be seen incorporated 
as chancel in one of larger plans, the oldest ecclesiastical 
edifice in England. William of Malmesbury, Roger 
de Hoveden and others refer to Maelduf's work and 
call Malmesbury "the city of Maidulph." 

250 



Centers of Irish Influence in England 

William of Malmesbury quotes a deed, dated 672, by 
which (Bishop) Leutherius gave "that portion of land 
called Maidulfesburgh" to Aldhelm, the priest. Aldhelm, 
the deed says, "from his earliest infancy and first initia- 
tion in the study of learning, has been instructed in the 
liberal arts and passed his days nurtured in the bosom 
of holy mother church." This refers to his upbringing 
by Maelduf and his companions. Maelduf was a figure 
in the continual stream of Irish teachers pouring through 
Bristol, Malmesbury and Glastonbury, and spreading 
throughout South Britain parallel to those other streams 
that found their way through Chester, Cumberland, and 
over the Tweed, into northern and midland England. 

Exeter, or Eaxeceaster, where Boniface was educated, 
was probably an Irish foundation. It could not very 
well have been a West Saxon foundation — the West 
Saxons were not then sufficiently advanced — and it was 
in what had long been distinctly Brito-Irish territory. 
Hardly anything is known of it beyond the fact that it 
was the seminary in which Boniface spent his youth. 
Elsewhere evidence is given in support of the view that 
Boniface was born of Irish parents in the Irish colony 
of Britain. 

Daniel, or Danihel, bishop of Winchester, who corre- 
sponded with Boniface when the latter was in Germany, 
appears from his name to have been an Irishman and, like 
Boniface, probably belonged to the Brito-Irish colony into 
which the West Saxons had driven a wedge. The prac- 
tice of giving children Hebrew names like Daniel did 
not come into vogue in Saxon England or elsewhere till 
long after this period. Thus in the Domesday Book only 
two Johns — the name is derived from the Hebrew 
Jehohannen, "God is gracious" — are listed and one of 

251 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

them is a Dane. Yet John became the commonest of all 
names under later usage in England as elsewhere. The 
bishop's name was probably Domhnaill, or Donnell, as 
it is written in its Anglicized form, a name which in 
modern times is also usually corrupted, in Ireland, when 
a Christian name, into Daniel. 

Daniel was one of the persons with whom Boniface had 
entered into a contract for mutual intercessory prayer. In 
the records his name appears as Danihel, which resembles 
the Irish spelling. He was an intimate friend not only 
of Boniface, but of Aldhelm at Sherborne and Bede at 
Jarrow. Daniel like Aldhelm had been educated under 
the Irish scholar Maeldubh or Mailduf at Malmesbury 
and it was to Malmesbury that he retired in his old age 
(he died in 745) when loss of sight compelled him to 
resign the bishopric. He supplied Bede with the infor- 
mation regarding the church history of the south and west 
of Britain. 1 But he is best remembered for his intimate 
connection with Boniface. It was from Daniel that 
Boniface received commendatory letters when he started 
for Rome and to Daniel he continually turned for counsel 
during his work in Germany. Two letters of the bishop 
to Boniface are preserved and give an admirable im- 
pression of his piety and good sense. 2 In the second of 
these epistles, which was written after his loss of sight, 
[Daniel takes a touching farewell of his correspondent: 
"Farewell, farewell, thou hundred-fold dearest one!" 
Daniel made pilgrimages to Rome in 721 and 731 and 
assisted at the consecration of Archbishop Tatwine. A 
vision recorded in the "Monumenta Moguntina" No. 112 
perhaps implies that he was considered lacking in energy; 
nevertheless it would follow from William of Malmes- 

1 See Bede, Hist. Eccl. Praef . 

2 See Haddan and Stubbs, "Councils," III, 304, 343. 

252 



Centers of Irish Influence in England 



bury's reference to a certain stream in which Daniel stood 
all night that he was of remarkable austerity. 1 Florence 
of Worcester and others have references to him. 

The Irish continued the ruling element in the Devonian 
peninsula and in what is now Wales to the seventh and 
eighth centuries. Exeter was probably the scene of the 
labors of some of the Irish teachers who poured through 
what is now Bristol. There appear to have been many 
such and had there been a West Saxon Bede doubtless we 
would be in possession of a story of their work in the 
south similar to that told of Aidan, Finan, Colman and 
their associates and successors in Northumbria. 

2. Founders of Abingdon, Chichester, and Lincoln 

Abingdon, in Berkshire, originally Abban-dun or Dun 
Abban, has its name derived from that of Abban, an Irish 
scholar, who founded a monastery there and converted 
many. He was a hermit, and authorities are cited con- 
cerning his connection with the place by Camden who 
says that "in course of time that monastery rose to such 
magnificence that in wealth and extent it was hardly 
second to any in England." 

There is a difference of opinion between Colgan and 
Lanigan in regard to Abban's work in England. Colgan 
agrees with Camden and considers that Abban labored at 
Abingdon and lived to a great age. Lanigan 2 throws 
doubt on the account on the ground that in Abban's life- 
time the district continued in possession of the pagan 
Saxons. Kelly, 3 rejects the objections of Lanigan and 
propounds the view, now generally accepted, that Abban 
was actually the foster-father of the town and the original 

1 Gest. Pont. I, 357. 

2 Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. 

3 Translator of Lynch's "Cambrensis Eversus." 

253 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

founder of the monastic establishment. The town, which 
is near Oxford on the Thames, lay well within the orbit 
of influence of the southern stream of Irish missionary 
teachers, travelers and merchants that flowed in and out 
of the trading port of Bristol and South Wales. In 
modern times Irish fibula? have been found around 
Abingdon. 

According to the Chronicle of Abingdon, the famous 
abbey was founded in the first year of the reign of 
Centwine, who was the leading figure in Wessex during 
the period when, says Bede, "for ten years after the death 
of Coinwalch there was anarchy in the kingdom." We 
read in the Chronicle that during the reign of Centwine, 
who is thought by some to have been the father of Aldhelm 
and Bugga, there was a petty prince called Cissa, who 
ruled over Wiltshire and the greater part of Berkshire. 
He had a local bishop with a see at Malmesbury, but his 
own capital city was Bedeeuwinde (i. e., Bedwyn, in 
Wilts) . In the southern part of the town he built a castle 
which from him was called Cyssebui. He had a nephew 
called Hean, a rich, powerful and religious man who had 
a pious sister called Cilia. When Hean one day heard 
the preacher say in church that it was easier for a camel 
to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to 
enter the kingdom of heaven he began to despise his own 
wealth and to turn his thoughts to heavenly things. 
Thereupon his sister Cilia went to her uncle and asked 
him to make him a grant of land where he could build 
a monastery. To this Cissa assented and discovered in 
the south of Oxfordshire a place called Abba's Hill, 
where it was reported there had previously been a small 
religious establishment and, as it was a woody district 
(the Bagley Wood of that period), he proceeded to build 

254 



Centers of Irish Influence in England 

a monastery there. This was in the year 685. The new 
foundation was endowed with much land and money by 
Cissa, while Hean made over to it his own hereditary 
property. The founder of the abbey was succeeded as 
abbot of the monastery by Conan, a distinctly Irish name, 
as is also that of Hean. 1 The small religious establishment 
referred to was possibly that of Abban. 

Dicuil — the name appears to have been a prevalent one 
among the learned Irish of that age — founded the mon- 
astery of Bosham in Sussex, whence issued the see of 
Chichester. Dicuil had with him five or six brothers, but 
for some reason they did not show the enterprising spirit 
that was characteristic of other missionary Irishmen. Bede 
says the native South Saxons paid little attention to them. 
"There was among them," he writes, "a certain monk of 
the Irish nation, whose name was Dicuil, who had a very 
small monastery at the place called Bosanham, encom- 
passed with the sea and woods, and in it five or six 
brothers, who served our Lord in poverty and humility; 
but none of the natives cared either to follow their course 
of life or to hear their preaching." 2 

The founder of the see of Lincolnshire was iEthelwine, 
brother of Alduini, abbot of Partney, and of the abbess 
iEdilhilda. He fixed his seat in 679 at Sidnaceaster, a 
few miles from Lincoln, now called Stow, where in later 
Saxon times a stately minster arose which still remains, 
the finest building extant of Saxon date and with many 
Irish features. /Ethelwine and his brother iEthelhun 
were of noble birth and were educated in Ireland. Bede 
says that iEthelwine having been well instructed returned 
from Ireland into his own country and being appointed 

1 Chronicle of Abingdon, II, 268, 273. 

2 Hist. Eccl. IV. XIII. 

255 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

bishop governed the province of Lindissi most worthily 
for a long time. 1 

3. Aldhelm and English Students in Ireland 

Evidence has already been given of the extent to which 
the English, in common with other foreigners, went to 
Ireland for purposes of education. By the time of 
Aldhelm the habit had become something of a passion 
and his remarks on the subject are curious. In a letter 
to Eadfrid, later bishop of Lindisfarne (698-721), just 
returned from Ireland where he spent six years, he says 
in his flowery way: "We have heard from newsmongers 
that you have arrived safely at the ambrosial shores of 
the British territory, having left the wintry climes and 
storms of the island of Ireland, where for a triple two 
years' period you have drawn nourishment from the udder 

of wisdom (uber sophiae) Our ears have been 

tingled by assertions beyond the bounds of mere rumor of 
those who dwell on Irish soil with whom you yourself 
have lived, assertions like peals of thunder from the crash- 
ing clouds, and through many and wide stadia of the land, 
the opinion spreads and grows in force." He then goes 
on to remark on the stream of scholars crossing and 
recrossing the sea to and from Ireland: "The coming and 
going of those who pass by the ship's track, the whirlpools 
of the sea, hence and thence, hither and thither, is so 
frequent that it resembles some brotherhood of bees, 
busily storing the nectar in the comb." 2 

Strange bombast this, yet Aldhelm was the first English- 
man to cultivate classical letters with any success. His 
luxuriance of speech is the evident result of an almost 
boyish delight in his new found knowledge and in its 

lHist. Eccl. Ill, XXVII. 

2Migne, LXXXIX, Epistola III, col. 94. 

256 



Centers of Irish Influence in England 

display. The chief value of these passages is the light 
they throw on Ireland's preeminence as the school of the 
West in that period. He remarks that in Ireland English 
students learned not only the arts of grammar and 
geometry but also physics and allegorical and tropological 
interpretations of scripture. 

In another letter to his protege, Winfrid or Wilfrid, 
the companion of iEthelwald with whom he went to Ire- 
land Aldhelm, like some later people on the Continent, 
gives evidence of apprehension respecting the danger in 
the philosophy and classical learning taught in Ireland 
as well as in the vagaries of living in the university towns 
of that country. In this he says that he had heard of the 
intended voyage of Winfrid to Ireland in pursuit of 
knowledge and he warns him against the perils of pagan 
philosophy to the faith and especially of mythology. 
What benefit, he asks, can orthodox truth derive from the 
studies of a man who spends his strength in examining 
into the incests of the impure Proserpine, the adventures 
of the petulant Hermione, the bacchanals of Lupercus, or 
the parasites of Priapus. These things have passed away 
and become as nothing before the cross victorious over 
death. He also counsels him against keeping loose com- 
pany and wearing extravagant dress. 1 

Aldhelm himself claims to have been the first English- 
man to practise the art of Latin composition in prose and 
verse. "No one," he says, "sprung from our stock, and 
born of German blood, has before our mediocre work 
done this kind of thing." 2 And thus he applies to himself 
Virgil's own lines: 

Primus ego in patriam mecum (modo vita supersit) 
Aonio rediens deducam vertice Musas 
Primus Idumaeus referam tibi, mantua palmas. 

i Giles, Aldhelmi Opera, p. 377. 
2Epist. ad Acircium, ed., Giles, 327. 

2 57 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

"His language," says Haddan, "for enigmatic erudition, 
and artificial rhetoric rivals Armada, and Holophernes 
or Euphues." 1 Taine calls him a Latinized Skald. 

Roger has noted the fact that the inflation and grandilo- 
quence of Aldhelm's style became still more pronounced 
when he was writing either to Irishmen or to men educated 
in Ireland. In view of Aldhelm's naive envy of the fame 
of the Irish schools to which English and continental 
students continued to stream despite the presence of 
Theodore and Hadrian at Canterbury, his motive would 
seem very evident. It would appear that he wanted to 
demonstrate, as Roger notes, that one was quite capable 
of being in possession of a beautiful.style without having 
to go to Ireland to acquire it. Perhaps also he considered 
the school which produced such compositions as His- 
perica Famina a fine model and wanted to give satisfac- 
tion to those who were among its admirers. On the other 
hand, "English magnificence" is the quality of Aldhelm's 
Latin prose and verse in the opinion of William of 
Malmesbury. 2 

4. Correspondence Between Aldhelm and Cellan 

There is in existence a letter written to Aldhelm by 
Cellan, the Irish abbot of Perrone, the successor in the 
monastery to Ultan, the brother of the famed Fursa. The 
mere correspondence gives us a pleasant picture of the 
brotherhood of letters then existing, in which the inter- 
communication over a wide area was conducted by such 
Irish scholars as attended Hadrian's school at Canterbury, 
as well as the Englishmen who went to Ireland, and the 
Irishmen who traveled from one country to another. One 
of Cellan's letters, which is signed with his name, is 

l Remains, 267. 

zGesta Pontificum, V, 189. 

258 



Centers of Irish Influence in England 

addrest to "My Lord Aldhelm, the Archimandrite (i. e., 
the Abbot) , enriched in the study of letters, adorned by 
honey-bearing work by night, who in a marvelous manner 
has acquired in the land of the Saxons that which some in 
foreign parts hardly obtain by dint of toilsome labor. 
Cellanus, born in the island of Ireland, dwelling obscurely 
in an extreme corner of the land of the Franks, near those 
of a famous colony of Christ, greeting in the whole and 
sure Trinity." Cellanus then proceeds to pay Aldhelm 
some compliments and inter alia tells him that though 
they were not worthy to hear him at home, they read his 
finely composed works painted with the attractions of 
various flowers. He reports how he had heard praises of 
his Latin and goes on to say: "If you would refresh the 
sad heart of a pilgrim, send him some small discourses 
(sermunculos) from your sweet lips, the rills derived 
from which pure fountain may refresh the minds of many 
in the place where rest the holy remains of the Lord 
Fursa." 1 

William of Malmesbury, to whom we are indebted 
for the letter of Cellan gives us only one clause from 
Aldhelm's reply, which is not illuminating. "I wonder," 
he says, "that from the renowned and flower bearing fields 
of the Franks, the activity of your fraternity addresses 
such a poor little creature (tantillum homunculum) as 
myself, sprung from the Saxon race and cradled in my 
tender years under a northern sky (sub Arctos axe)." 

Another letter to Aldhelm, which as it has been pre- 
served to us is anonymous, is with great probability 
identified as written by Cellan. In this letter the writer 
describes himself as "an Irishman of unknown name," 
and at that time he had probably not yet become abbot 

i Giles, Aldhelmi Opera, 331; Bonif. Ep. 4 (Mayor's Bede, p. 298). 

259 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

of Perrone. Giles, 1 and Hole, 2 both identify this Irish- 
man with Cellan, and Ludwig Traube, who found a 
number of Cellan's Latin verses at Florence, makes the 
authorship almost certain. 3 The letter is addrest "To 
the Lord Aldhelm, holy and most wise, to Christ most 
dear; an Irishman of name unknown sends greeting in 
the eternal God." It then continues: 

"Knowing how you excel in intellect, in Roman excel- 
lence, and in the varied flowers of letters after the manner 
of the Greeks, I would rather learn from your mouth, the 
purest fount of knowledge, than drink from any other 
spring, especially from the turbid master (turbulento 
magistro praesertim, to whom Cellan refers is not appar- 
ent). I beseech you to take me and teach me, because 
the brightness of wisdom shines in you beyond many 
lecturers, and you understand the minds of foreigners who 
desire to acquire knowledge, for you have been to Rome, 
and besides you were yourself taught by a certain holy 
man of our race. Let this serve as a summary of 
reasons . . . ." the upshot being that the writer wanted 
to borrow a certain book, the letter ending with a sacred 
poem of twenty-one lines. 

The "holy man of our race" who taught Aldhelm was 
of course Maelduf of Malmesbury. Another teacher of 
Aldhelm was Hadrian at Canterbury, but Aldhelm was 
between forty and fifty before he met Hadrian, and even 
at Canterbury was in the society of Irish scholars, as he 
himself tells us. The Irishmen had little to learn either 
from Theodore or Hadrian and they appear there more in 
the character of controversialists and logicians, already 
wielding the dialectical method for which they were to 



lAldhelmi Opera, 331. 

bhandlungi 

260 



2D. C. B. i, 434. 

3Perrona Scotorum, Abhandlungen der Bay. Akad (1900) 469-538. 



Centers of Irish Influence in England 

become famous on the Continent, than as meek learners. 
Doubtless the chief attraction to the Irishmen in Canter- 
bury was the opportunity of extending their knowledge of 
Greek of which they were almost the sole representatives 
in western Europe. 1 

i William of Malmesbury has preserved for us also a letter written by 
a young- Irish prince named Artuil (he is called Artwilius in the manuscript) 
and directed to Aldhelm, in which he requests the Englishman to polish for 
him his first literary efforts, "ut perfecti ingenii lima eraderetur scabredo 
Scottica." 



261 



CHAPTER XXI 
IRISH TUTELAGE OF ENGLAND 

I. Irish Influence, More than Roman, Potent Among English. 2. Theo- 
dore and "Molossian Hounds" at Canterbury. 3. Irish Plant Arts 
and Industries in England. 4. By the Time of Bede and Alcuin. 
5. Irish Scholars and King Alfrid. 6. Irish Literati Before and 
After Dunstan. 

i. Irish Influence, More than Roman, Potent 
Among English 

TO some it has appeared that the Irish tutelage of 
England came to an end with the Synod of Whitby 
and the withdrawal of Colman and his associates. 
The truth is that Irish preceptors continued their work in 
England and English students continued to go to school 
in Ireland almost without let-up until after the French 
conquest. The Irish foundations in England, swallowed 
up one after another by the engulfing barbarism with its 
reiteration of sporadic outbreaks, in the intermittent 
periods of calm saw new founders amid the ruins carrying 
on in the face of heavy discouragement the work of 
regeneration. The influence of the Irish missionaries over 
the aborigines of the country continued as powerful almost 
as that of the native rulers. The Easter question had only 
a fraction of the importance that has been attached to it. 
Ireland outside of Columcille's country, as Bede observes 
and as the Paschal letter of Cummian 1 bears evidence, 
yielding to the admonition of the Apostolic See, had 
already conformed to the Roman usage and canonical 

iMigne L.XXXVII, cols. 969, 978, Epistola de controversia paschali. 

262 



Irish Tutelage of England 



custom in 634 A. D., thirty years before the Synod of 
Whitby. Iona, which was the last to hold out, relinquished 
its intransigeant attitude in 715. Such differences of view 
as existed moderated but little the amenability of the 
English natives to Irish exhortation. Irishmen following 
the so-called "Celtic" usages and Irishmen following the 
Roman usages continued therefore to carry on their work 
before and after uniformity had been established between 
the two islands. 

It thus becomes evident that whatever of civilization 
the English made their own from the period of the fifth 
century invasions to the French conquest of 1066 was 
acquired by them from Irishmen and Irish schools outside 
of the small territory which was the orbit of Augustine 
and his successors. Even in the small kingdom of Kent 
the harvest was more apparent than real. There has been 
much exaggeration, as has been before remarked, about 
the schools supposed to have been introduced by 
Augustine and his monks. There is no reason to suppose 
that they had any other ideals than those of their master, 
Pope Gregory, who, we know, greatly undervalued 
secular learning and entirely disapproved of the clergy 
teaching it. His extraordinary letter to the Bishop of 
Vienne is eloquent of his views on the subject and even 
better proof of his prejudice is to be found in the fact that, 
despite his sojourn at Constantinople, the great pope 
never took the trouble to learn Greek, in which the best 
thought of the Old World was enshrined and in which 
nearly all the theology of the earlier centuries of the 
Church had been written. We may be sure that Gregory's 
influence in these matters, at all events in Italy, was wide- 
spread and that his monks from St. Andrew's monastery 
were deeply imbued with his views. There is no reason 

263 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

to believe, as a modern writer remarks, that they were in 
any sense learned men. All that the pope demanded from 
his pupils and proteges was sufficient learning from them 
to be able to read the Scriptures, service books, lives of 
the saints, and to explain the elementary dogmas; and, 
secondly, to be able to chant the psalter. There is no 
evidence anywhere of his patronage of libraries and 
schools, except choir schools. The only teaching tradi- 
tionally associated with Augustine and his colleagues was 
that preparatory to a clerical life and the schools founded 
by them were, as far as the evidence goes, seminary schools 
and schools for the teaching of choir boys and men 
through the medium of no language but Latin. "It was 
very different with the Irish missionaries who presently 
lighted a great lamp in Northumbria and who came from 
a country then all aflame with zeal for learning as well 
as religion." 1 Not even to Augustine can be rightly 
attributed the introduction of the Benedictine rule into 
England. That was the work of Benet Biscop, Wilfrid 
and Ceolfrid, and to the time of Dunstan it was only a 
fragmentary introduction, a blend of the Irish and Bene- 
dictine rule, as in the majority of the foundations in Gaul 
before the time of St. Benedict of Aniane. 

2. Theodore and "Molossian Hounds" at Canterbury 

The influence of Theodore and Adrian, who estab- 
lished a school with a wider curriculum at Canterbury, 
has been similarly exaggerated. Theodore was an old man, 
sixty-nine years of age, when he arrived in England in 
668. Neither he nor Adrian knew anything of the Anglo- 
Saxon tongue and it is very doubtful whether either of 
them ever attempted to learn a word of what was to them 

i Howorth, Golden Days of the English Church, III, 359. 

264 



Irish Tutelage of England 



the mere brutal jargon of uncouth savages. On the face 
of it it taxes our credulity to invite us to believe, as is 
uniformly done, that such development as is discernible in 
England at that time was mainly due to their labor. There 
is no real evidence even that Theodore did any actual 
teaching outside of his preaching. The Roman tradition, 
plainly voiced by Gregory the Great in respect to the 
impropriety of a bishop teaching secular subjects, could 
not have but influenced Theodore. It is true that Bede 
praises both of them highly. It is true that from Theo- 
dore and Adrian some of the natives actually learned 
Latin and Greek. It is likewise true that such knowledge 
speedily died out, as the very passage of Bede relating to 
it indicates. But a mere consideration of indubitable 
facts makes it clear that we must look elsewhere for the 
real source of such civilized progress as the English tribes 
were then making. That source lay in the impassioned 
efforts of strenuous, accomplished Irishmen in every 
corner of England. Wherever real progress was evident, 
wherever books were being written, wherever scholars of 
note appeared, wherever a school showed real results, 
wherever the arts were being cultivated, there Irishmen 
were in the midst of it. Count the number of scholars in 
England during the Anglo-Saxon period who left any- 
thing behind them. Almost without exception they were 
Irish-trained. Canterbury has hardly a single scholar 
worth mentioning to show. Aldhelm, Bede, Alcuin, 
Fredegis, Egbert, Caedmon, Cynewulf, Dunstan, were 
everyone of them associated with Irish teachers and Irish 
foundations. Up to the period of the Conquest Anglo- 
Saxon manuscripts were written entirely, as has been said, 
in the Irish script. Not a single document exists in the 
Roman script with the dubious exception of a small chart, 

265 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

half Roman, half Irish, belonging to the eleventh century. 
And so through all the visible evidences that have been 
preserved to us of that period — books, metal work, sculp- 
ture, architecture and other products of the allied arts. 
The portable specimens might have been made in Ire- 
land, and are believed, many of them, to have been made 
in Ireland, so manifestly are they examples of Irish craft. 1 
In the school founded by Theodore, the Cilician arch- 
bishop had the cooperation of Irish scholars. Even then 
that love of dialectical controversy, of probing into the 
ratio of things, which was later to make the Irish school- 
men the stormy petrels of the continental church, and 
which already had found its illustrations in the Paschal 
disputations and in the correspondence between Colum- 
banus and the Frank bishops and between Columbanus 
and Popes Gregory and Boniface, had become habitual 
to them. Aldhelm, who was stationed at Canterbury at 
the time, in one of his letters indicates that in the Greek 
from Tarsus the Irishmen discovered a doughty antago- 
nist. The archbishop, he says, was "densely surrounded by 
a crowd of Irish students, who grievously badgered him 
(globo discipulorum stipetur) as the truculent boar was 
hemmed in by a snarling pack of Molossian hounds. He 
tore them with the tusks of grammar and pierced them 
with the deep and sharp syllogisms of chronography till 
they cast away their weapons and hurriedly fled to the 
recesses of their dens." 2 The point to be noted here is 
that even at Canterbury and in Kent, with which Irish 
influence is seldom associated, Irish scholars were active, 

i "It is now well ascertained that all the sacred books so highly venerated 
by the Anglo-Saxon Church and left by her early bishops as heirlooms to 
their respective sees were obtained from Ireland or written by Irish scribes." 
(Rev. J. H. Todd, Proc. Roy. I. Acad., Vol. I, 41.) 

2 Giles, Aldhelmi Opera, p. 94; Brown, Aldhelm, 263-4. Compare Aldhelm's 
description with Gregory Nazienzen's account of the encounter of Basil with 
the Armenian students in Athens (Oration XLIII). 

266 



Irish Tutelage of England 



and had probably been familiar figures since Dagan had 
refused the hospitality of Lawrence, successor of Augus- 
tine. 

Bede furnishes us with little detail respecting the kind 
of teaching fostered by Adrian and his master Theodore, 
but he gives us a goodly list of their scholars. The really 
important new element introduced by Adrian into the 
Canterbury school was the teaching of Greek. Beyond 
that the great Irish schools had little to learn and it was 
doubtless in pursuit of a more advanced knowledge of 
Greek that those Irish scholars were present at Canterbury 
who were not merely sojourning there in their journey 
to the Continent. They alone appear to have been able 
to take permanent advantage of the opportunity thus 
afforded, and to this source we may look for at least one 
tributary to that Hellenic knowledge which they display 
in subsequent ages when such knowledge was elsewhere 
dead in the West. To the brighter spirits among the 
English natives the fame of the African and the Greek, 
with all the prestige of the Roman empire behind them, 
could not compete with the fame of Irish scholars and the 
Irish schools, then rising to the meridian of their influence 
and development. Instead of flocking to Canterbury, 
they continued to flock in the direction of Ireland. The 
letter of Aldhelm to Eahfrid exhibits in turgid Latin his 
naive irritation over the superior attraction of the Irish 
schools : "I, a wretched small man, have revolved these 
things as I wrote them down and have been tortured with 
the anxious question: Why should Ireland, whither 
students ship-borne flock together in summer, why should 
Ireland be exalted by some ineffable privilege as though 
here on this fertile turf of Britain teachers of Latin and 
Greek (didacaii Argivi Romanive Quirites) cannot be 

267 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 



found, who, solving the seven problems of the celestial 
library are able to unlock them to untutored smatterers. 
The fields of Ireland are as rich in learners and in the 
exuberant number (pascuosa numerositate) of students as 
the pivots of the pole quiver with vibrations of the glitter- 
ing constellations, and yet Britain (if you like to say so) 
placed almost at the extreme verge of the world, possesses 
a glowing sun and a lustrous moon, that is to say, Theo- 
dore, the archbishop of the island, who has grown old in 
acquiring the flowers of the philosophic art, and Adrian, 
his companion in the brotherhood of learning, and inef- 
fably endowed with pure urbanity." 1 

While it is sometimes asserted that Adrian founded 
other schools in England besides that at Canterbury there 
has been found only one charter, accepted as genuine by 
Kemble, containing grants to him. This is dated 686 and 
is a conveyance of land in Kent, being a part of his own 
demesne (terrae juris mei) made with the consent of his 
elders by King Eadric to St. Augustine's abbey. 

3. Irish Plant Arts and Industries in England 

No missionary from Italy had ever, till the installation 
of Theodore of Tarsus, dwelt outside the boundaries of 
Kent. Their hold even on Kent was a feeble hold, for 
reversion to heathensim was the order of the day and the 
graces of civilized life were not even coveted or imparted. 
Of themselves the English could do nothing. As a result 
of their almost absolute barbarism they showed from the 
beginning an incapacity for initiating or originating any- 
thing. Thus while Britain was everywhere encumbered 
with Roman buildings of stone, intact or in ruins, Benet 

1 Giles, Adhelmi Opera, p. 94; Migne Pat. Lat., LXXXIX, col. 94. Stubbs 
suggests that Eahfrid, to whom Aldhelm's letter is addrest, may have been 
either Echfrith, abbot of Glastonbury, or Eadfrid, bishop of Ldndisfarne. 
Jtaine definitely identifies him with this latter. 

268 



Irish Tutelage of England 



Biscop had late in the seventh century to import artizans 
from Gaul to build the simple houses he desired to erect 
at Wearmouth and J arrow. Among the native population 
he could find nobody capable of the simplest work of 
carpentry, quarrying and construction, though the models 
of the vanished empire were ever before their eyes. 

Everywhere throughout England on the other hand 
where the arts and works of civilized life were superseding 
the futile monotony and disorder of barbarism, Irishmen 
were themselves accomplishing the work or instructing 
the reclaimed English how to do it. In the region spread- 
ing out like a fan from Malmesbury they dotted the land 
with edifices that rivaled the Roman models in design 
and durability. The church erected at Bradford-on- 
Avon, whether the work of Aldhelm's time or a renova- 
tion of the ninth century, shows the influence of Irish 
hands and endures to this day. At Frome, Sherborne, and 
jWareham on the south coast, where the first buildings 
known to Wessex were raised, they must have worked in 
goodly numbers. The monastic life they introduced into 
the country was fruitful in good work. As Green puts 
it: "It broke the dreary line of the northern coast with 
settlements which proved the forerunner of some of the 
busiest English ports. It broke the silence of waste and 
moor by homes like that of Ripon and Lastingham. It 
set agricultural colonies in the depths of vast woodlands, 
as at Evesham and Malmesbury, while by a chain of 
religious houses it made its way step by step into the heart 
of the Fens." 1 

It was of course chiefly in the north that Irish activity 
directed its first energies. But soon the Irish missionary, 
artist, and craftsman was exercising his humanizing 

i Hist, of England. 

269 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

influence in every corner of the island. Fursa in East 
Anglia, Dicuil in Sussex, Finan in Essex, and Diuma and 
his associates in Mercia were but representative of a great 
apostolate, embracing industry and art as well as religion 
and learning, that elevated and organized the land. 
Wherever the Irishmen concentrated their energies the 
result was seen in a general speeding up of effort in every 
department of national or provincial life. Under their 
tutelage Northumbria became the first of the English 
states in influence and the first in the department of letters. 
Its kings were educated in Iona and Ireland, and there 
they learned to speak and write the Irish tongue and 
become acquainted with the graces of Irish literature, 
then already embodied in the literary shape in which its 
splendid fragments have come down to us. 

There can be little doubt that there were other English 
records akin to Bede's telling among other things of the 
work of Irishmen in England. Simeon of Durham's 
chronicles 1 appear to be based on a Northumbrian history 
now lost. Had Bede's history been destroyed we would 
know very little concerning what Irishmen did in En- 
gland, yet Bede wrote only a century after Irishmen began 
their work. Of their later work there is no connected 
narrative and we have to assemble our information from 
scattered sources. The fact appears to be that the Irish 
records in England were destroyed by the Danes, who 
devastated the very provinces where their influence was 
strongest. We know that Irish influence was the strongest 
leaven in Anglo-Saxon life, but had we the full, instead 
of only the partial facts concerning that influence, doubt- 
less the origin of much that is obscure would be revealed. 

l Historia de Gestis Regum Anglorum. 



270 



Irish Tutelage of England 



4. By the Time of Bede and Alcuin 

By the time of Bede and Alcuin, the north of England 
was covered with Irish schools. Bede himself was trained 
at Jarrow and had as masters there, as he himself tells us, 
Trumhere, or Trumbert, the disciple of St. Chad and 
Sigf rid, who had been the fellow pupil of Cuthbert at the 
Irish foundation of Melrose under Boisil and Eata, whom 
Aidan had rescued from slavery, educated and ordained. 
From these Bede "derived the Irish knowledge of Scrip- 
ture and discipline." 1 Another of those who influenced 
him was John of Beverly, the pupil of Theodore and 
of the Irish foundation of Whitby. Trumbert was brought 
up among the Irish-trained monks of Lestingham, 
founded by Chad. Sigf rid was living at Jarrow 
an aged invalid when Bede was writing his history and 
the methods and all-consuming passion for teaching and 
learning derived from his Irish masters are movingly 
portrayed by Bede in the scenes preceding his death. 2 
Ceolfrid, 3 the patron and teacher of Bede, had always 
been subject to Irish influences, having assumed the habit 
and entered the monastery of Ingetlingum (i. e., Colling- 
ham), where his elder brother, Abbot Cynefrid, then 
ruled. He committed him for instruction to his relative 
Tunberht, who afterward became bishop of Hexham. 
Cynefrid himself, as the "Anonymous History of the 
Abbots" tells us, had been to Ireland for the purpose 
of studying the Scriptures and "of seeing the Lord more 
frequently in tears and prayers." Benet Biscop, who 
founded Jarrow and Monkwearmouth, received like Wil- 
frid his education among the Irish monks of Lindisfarne 
and its dependent foundations, who cooperated in the new 

1 Stubbs, Diet, of Chr. Biog., sub voce Sede. 

2De Abbatibus. 

SMigne, Patrol. Lat., LXXXIX. 

271 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

creations on the banks of the Tyne and Wear. Bede's 
history seems to have been modeled on Irish historical 
works like those of Adamnan, who wrote his life of 
Columcille when Bede was a young man, and who is 
said to have written also in Latin a history of the Irish 
people down to his own times. 1 

There was evidently a very close connection between 
Northumbria and Clonmacnois, for Tighernach, abbot 
of that great seat of learning, in his Annals, gives the dates 
of Bede's works as they are written, evidently copied from 
contemporary records, and notices the date of the found- 
ing of Lindisfarne and the changing of Easter at Iona. 
The letters of Alcuin reveal the intimate intercourse 
between Clonmacnois and the school of York as well as 
Tours and the court of Charlemagne. 2 In the Annals of 
Ulster under the year 730, and in the Annals of Tigher- 
nach in 731, we read, "Echdach (i. e., Eochaid), the son 
of Cuidin (i. e., Cuthwene), King of the Saxons, was 
tonsured (clericatus) and imprisoned (constringitur)." 
The Eochaid here referred to was Ceolwulf, King of 
Northumbria, to whom Bede dedicates his history. Ceol- 
wulf, like Aldfrid, had apparently an alternative Irish 
name, but there is no other indication, beyond the fact 
that he was an ardent student, that he had lived in Ireland. 
He lived for the last twenty-three years of his life at 
Lindisfarne. During the central years of Bede's life the 
reigning king of Northumbria was Aldfrid, whose affilia- 
tions with Ireland were so intimate and enduring. 3 

iWard, Vita Rumoldi, p. 218, Lovan., 1662. 

2 From Tours he addresses Colgu, Fer-leiginn or Rector of Clonmacnois, as 
"master and father" and discusses its affairs with him. He gives the gossip 
of Clonmacnois to Josephus Scotus, who was student under Colgu at Clon- 
macnois and instructor at York (Migne, Pat. Lat. C, cols. 128, 142, 143, 445). 
His learning made him appear an Irishman to his contemporaries. Thus the 
Chronicon Turonense at 791: "Erat autem Alcuinus Scotus, ingenio clarus," 
etc. (Migne C, col. 128). 

3 See Dublin Review, XXI, 519. 

272 



Irish Tutelage of England 



There were Irish monks and Irish trained monks at 
York, at Jarrow, at Monkwearmouth, at Melrose, at 
Hexham, at Whitby, and other foundations. The later 
English schools, brief and fitful in their career, were 
often but the piecing together again, on the site or in the 
neighborhood, of the older Irish foundations, broken up in 
the periodic homicidal welter of internecine conflict that 
succeeded the passing of one petty king or another through 
Anglo-Saxon history. At York, an offshoot of Lindisf arne, 
Alcuin appears to have acquired from Irish Hellenists 
there resident such knowledge of Greek 1 as he possest, tho 
the knowledge may likewise have been acquired at Clon- 
macnois, if he actually studied under Colgu in that great 
seat of learning. 2 The master who influenced Alcuin most 
in company with iElbert had been brought into the 
monastery by Eata, the protege of Aidan and one of the 
earliest representatives of Irish learning among the 
English. 3 The Irish scholars and craftsmen all over 
England put no curb on the liberality with which they 
dispensed their learning and skill. That the pupils should 
lag behind the masters is only in the nature of things. The 
slough of an age-long barbarism was not easily shed; but 
if a mere film of mediocrity and dulness in contrast to 
the depth of brutality and despair underneath is what is 
represented by progress in the Anglo-Saxon epoch, it is 
well to remember that in one or two directions and in 
one or two examples Anglo-Saxon skill rivaled its Irish 

i This is the opinion of Gardthausen, the German authority on Greek 
paleography. 

2 As to whether Alcuin studied at Clonmacnois: cf. Monnier, Alcuin et 
Charlemagne, Paris, 1854. Alcuin's admiration for the culture of Irishmen 
as well as his dread of their "Egyptian" philosophy break out frequently in 
his correspondence and other works (Frobenius edition, I, 185, 285, 284, 286 
note; II, 185, 246, vers. 458). 

3 At York under Alcuin was Liudger, later archbishop of the Frisians, 
apparently the only continental student that ever went to England for educa- 
tion. 



19 



273 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

archetype. The singularity of the Book of Lindisfarne 
as a work produced in England by the natives themselves, 
instructed by Irish artists, is manifest in the contrast 
between its finished beauty and the other memorials of 
its school. Its ascription to Eadfrid, a student in Ireland, 
may be correct. But, if genuinely Anglo-Saxon, it is no 
less manifestly a creation of Irish art, indistinguishable 
in its characteristics from other works of the period pro- 
duced in Ireland. A succession of paleographers have 
labored in the pursuit of some distinguishing mark which 
would enable them to differentiate Irish from Anglo- 
Saxon manuscripts, illuminated and non-illuminated. 
Their labor has been in vain. The strong tutelary Irish 
hand kept its grasp on England, guiding the hands an( 
feet of the aborigines of the country, recording their firsl 
lispings of the syllables of civilization, nursing the prom- 
ise of individuality in custom and speech, imposing th< 
bridle of Christian principle on the gaping ferocities oi 
barbaric appetite and passion, and impressing everywhere 
the Irish form and imprint, so that the work of their hands 
was as the copy to the prototype, differing only as the voic< 
of the neophyte reproduced in halting but faithful words 
the meaning of his instructor. 1 

5. Irish Scholars and King Alfred 

Missionary Irishmen labored to restore learning in 

England during the prolonged period when the Danes 

1 Symeon of Durham has preserved a poem by JSTthelwulf "de Abbatibus' 
which was dedicated to Egberht, then living in Ireland. In this poem he ha 
a chapter devoted to an Irishman, named Ultan, who was a priest and skille 
in the ornamentation of books. 

"Comtis qui potuit notis ornare libellos 
Atque apicum speciem viritim sic reddit amoenam, 
Hac arte ut nullus possit se acquare modernus 

Scriptor." 

(^Ethelwulf's poem, Appendix, Sym. of Durham, ed., Arnold, p. 274.) 

Ultan was also a zealous teacher and lived to be an old man. We are 

told moreover of a brother, named Cuicin, also apparently Irish, who was a 

skilful smith and a very holy man, mingling 1 the singing of psalms with 

his noisy occupation. 

274 



Irish Tutelage of England 



assisted in ruining it. The early chroniclers are unani- 
mous almost in associating Irishmen with King Alfred's 
reforms and some of them bring in the celebrated 
Johannes Scotus Eriugena as leader of an intellectual 
revival, confounding him, as Huber notes, with John 
from German Saxony. Alfred himself supplies us with 
the names of three Irishmen who acted as his co-workers 
and a recital of the extraordinary manner of their arrival. 
In the Chronicle, the origin of which is attributed to him, 
at the year 891, occurs the passage: "In this year three 
Irishmen came to Alfred king on a boat without oars 
or rudder. They had stolen away from Ireland because 
they would be for God's love on pilgrimage, they recked 
not where. The boat on which they fared was wrought 
of two and a half hides and they took with them meats 
for seven nights. And at the end of the seventh night 
they came to land in Cornwall and straightway fared to 
Alfred king. Thus were they named, Dubslane, and 
Macbeth and Maelinmain." The story is redolent of 
the spirit of Irish history and saga, and reproduces pre- 
eminently the spirit of the Irish pilgrim. In the Book 
of Leinster is a story how three young Irish clerics set 
out on a pilgrimage; they took as provision on the sea 
only three loaves. "In the name of Christ," said they, 
"let us throw our oars into the sea and let us commend 
ourselves to the Lord." 

According to the chronicle of Fabius Ethelwerd, the 
three Irishmen, after leaving Alfred, "who with his senate 
rejoiced at their coming," went to Rome and Jerusalem 
"as is customary with teachers of Christianity." He 
describes the three respectively as "flourishing in the arts, 
skilled in letters and a distinguished master of the Scots." 1 

1 Bk. IV, Ch. Ill, A. D. 891. 

275 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

Asser, Alfred's minister and biographer, speaks of ambas- 
sadors from Ireland to Alfred, writing of "the daily 
embassies sent to him by foreign nations from the Tyr- 
rhenian Sea to the furthest end of Ireland." 1 He talks 
of Alfred making gifts to Irish churches and of numbers 
of Irishmen among those who came voluntarily into his 
domain. Concerning John the Saxon, whom William of 
Malmesbury and other English chroniclers confound 
with Johannes Scotus Eriugena, little is known. But he 
came from Corbie in Saxony, a branch of the Irish founda- 
tion of Corbie on the Somme. Asser himself came to Alfred 
from Menevia, or St. Davids, a great Bri to-Irish center 
and the point in Wales nearest Ireland. He may have 
been wholly or partially Irish. The mere fact of his 
culture in that age, when Wales was far from conspicuous 
in culture, would tend to show that he had Irish connec- 
tions. 2 

6. Irish Literati Before and After Dunstan 

We are informed concerning Dunstan, archbishop of 
Canterbury (d. 988), who became notable for many 
reforms, including the restoration of the Benedictine 
monasteries, that "he received his education under certain 
Irish monks who were excellent masters of the sciences 
and at that time resided in Glastonbury, which the wars 
had left in a most ruinous condition." 8 

Dunstan, the first Englishman meriting the name of 
statesman, came from the half-Celtic region of Somerset 

1 Giles, Six Old English Chronicles, p. 78. 

2 The apparently authentic Asser is preserved almost intact in only one 
edition, that of 1722, which was printed from a tenth century Cottonian MS. 
(Otho, A. xii), destroyed by fire in 1731. Thomas Wright (Biogr. Brit. Lit. 
and "Archaeologia," xxix) questioned the authenticity of any part of the 
work attributed to Asser. The question is thoroughly discussed by Pauli 
in the introduction to his "Life of Alfred the Great," and by T. D. Healy 
in the introduction to Petrie's Monumenta. 

s Vita S. Dunstani, auctore Osberno, Migne, CXXXVII, 417-8. 

276 



Irish Tutelage of England 



on the borderland of the Bri to-Irish colony and a good 
deal of the Celtic temper ran probably with the blood in 
his veins. Under Dunstan's administration Celtic Britain 
revived again. He was himself first an abbot of the old 
Brito-Irish monastery of Glastonbury; he promoted men 
from that region to the principal posts of the kingdom; 
and he had Eadgar hallowed king at the ancient West 
Welsh royal city of Bath, married to a Devonshire lady 
and buried at Glastonbury. Indeed that establishment 
was under Dunstan what Westminster was under the 
later kings. Florence uses the strange expression that 
Eadgar was chosen "by the Anglo-Britons" ; and the meet- 
ing with the Welsh and Scotch princes in the semi-Welsh 
town of Chester conveys a like implication. 1 Dunstan 
showed the versatility characteristic of so many products 
of Irish training. He was musician, painter and scholar 
and it was he who really ruled England. 

It has been shown elsewhere that Glastonbury owed 
its renewal and probably its actual foundation to devoted 
Irishmen. King Eadgar in his charter endowing Glas- 
tonbury in Dunstan's time says of one of its parish 
churches, Beokery, that it is "called otherwise little 
Ireland." Osbern 2 of Canterbury tells us that many Irish- 
men — "men of great renown, nobly preeminent in liberal 
and sacred learning" — made pilgrimages through 
England at that period and promoted the revival there. 
Thus in the tenth century we see the identical work going 
on which Aidan, Finan, and Colman undertook in the 
seventh. And the need was almost as great in the tenth 
as in the seventh. 

Irish scholar-monks appear to have been active at Can- 

i See Allen, Anglo-Saxon Britain, 147. 

2Migne, Pat. Lat., CXXXVII, 417-8; Wharton, Anglia Sacra II, 91. 

277 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

terbury in the time of Ethelred II. One of them, abbot 
992-994, is considered to have been the author of the 
so-called Anglo-Saxon Cottoniana map of the world, 
intended to illustrate a scriptural subject, but still very 
much superior to most other medieval maps even up to 
the end of the thirteenth century. The map was found 
bound up with the Peregesius of Priscian, both of them 
written in Irish characters and by the same hand. Unlike 
the later maps of Dulcert and Pizigani St. Brendan the 
Navigator does not figure in it, but Ireland — called not 
Scotia but Hibernia — is correctly and prominently por- 
trayed, with Armagh as the capital. This Irish geogra- 
pher is supposed to have been a coadjutor of Archbishop 
Sigeric, with whose itinerary, relating to his pilgrimage 
to Rome, his map probably had connection. The study 
of geography degenerated after the destruction of the 
Roman Empire, but Irishmen remained foremost in it 
as in other sciences, tho the world of Strabo had become 
distorted by the partial acceptance as facts of the stories 
of heathen mythology and medieval romance. The maker 
of the Cottoniana showed knowledge unusual in his day. 
He places in the north and east of Europe the Scrittofinns 
(in Iceland), the Huns, the Turks, the Slavs, the Goths 
in Dacia, and the Bulgarians. The Dneiper is men- 
tioned, strange to say, by its native name, Naper fluvius. 
A curious entry is Sud Bryttas, and seven principal cities 
in Italy are given. 

Apart from the Irish missionaries, literati, and crafts- 
men, to whom reference is made in the scanty English 
records, it is plain that there could hardly have been a 
time when numbers of other Irishmen, concerning whom 
there is no record whatever, must have been in England. 
The Irish schoolmen who in the Carolingian era were 

278 



Irish Tutelage of England 



found in their thousands in cathedral, monastery and 
school on the Continent must nearly all of them have 
journeyed or resided for a time in England. Some sailed 
directly from Irish ports to French ports; that we know, 
but these must have formed a minority. The vast majority 
must have taken the more easy route through England, 
except in the frequent periods when the natives were on 
the warpath and the journey was impossible, as on the 
occasions to which Alcuin in his letter to Colgu of Clon- 
macnois 1 alludes. Columbanus and his company traveled 
by way of England, made an effort at missionary work 
there, and only passed on because of the hopelessness of 
the undertaking. Probably by that way went also Dungal, 
Dicuil, Clement, Ferghil of Salzburg, Johannes Scotus 
Eriugena, Sedulius Scotus, Marianus Scotus, and those 
other Irishmen who attained fame abroad. The presence 
of men such as these in England, whether transitory or 
prolonged, could not have been without results. Some of 
them probably lived and taught in England for years 
and only sought the Continent, when, as in the case of 
Fursa and his company, the internecine conflicts among 
the English tribes eddied in their direction and undid 
their work. In these Irish colonies will be found the key 
to much that is dark in English history as well as the roots 
of that fugitive blooming of the arts showing itself here 
and there on the rank soil of English barbarism. 

iMigne, Pat. Lat. C, 142, Ad Colcum L/ectorem in Scotia (anno 790), 
Epistola III. 



279 



CHAPTER XXII 

CURRENT OF IRISH CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND 

I. Whole Art of England Transplanted Irish Art. 2. Seed of Irish 
Law and Opinion. 3. Anglo-Saxon Mediocre Imitation of Irish 
Civilization. 4. Incorrigible Brutality of English Aborigines. 
5. Killing English Learning at its Birth. 6. Irish Authority- 
Gives Way to French. 

i. Whole Art of England Transplanted Irish Art 

IT was the method of the Irish teachers, as Zimmer 
notes, so to train the natives of whatever country that 
these in course of time might be able to go forward 
of their own accord. With that end in view they took 
what was already good among them and built from that 
foundation. As the English, when the representatives of 
Irish culture first went among them, were in a condition 
of total savagery, they had to build from the bottom up. 
They taught the natives how to read and spell and write, 
and this they did through the medium of the Irish charac- 
ters used from that time forward in England till its 
conquest by the French, when that other style of the 
Caroline hand, which continental Irish scribes had been 
instrumental also in developing on the basis of the old 
Merovingian, was introduced from the Continent. And 
so in the other departments of art and knowledge. Thus 
it came about that the products of Anglo-Saxon life have 
the universal Irish imprint, as the conception of the 
teacher is reproduced in the laborious essay of the scholar. 
The whole art of England, during the Anglo-Saxon 
period, was thus a transplanted Irish art, and the extant 

280 



Current of Irish Civilization in England 

remains among other things show this very clearly. The 
Bewcastle Cross, the crosses of Ampney Crusis, near 
Cirencester, Bag Enderly; the Anglo-Saxon stone carv- 
ings from Jedburgh Castle, the Ruthwell Cross and other 
stone carvings; the Alfred Jewell, the St. Cuthbert's 
Cross and the like in metal work; the oratories at Hexham 
and Bradford-on-Avon in architecture, and similar exam- 
ples of the art of the period that remain, are eloquent on 
this point. Clearer even is the Irish hand in the work of 
those illuminated masterpieces which were long labeled 
as examples of "Anglo-Saxon" or "Franco-Saxon" or 
"Hiberno-Saxon" art. 

Roman influences competed with Irish in the English 
architecture of the period. That the Irish were great 
builders the famous round towers, having their origin in 
a period from which date very few structures of value 
in Europe, are alone sufficient witness. Earlier than 
these are the vast military strongholds of Dun Aenghus, 
Staigue Fort, Aileach of the Kings or Grianan Ely, and 
Emain Macha, the vast incised tumuli of New Grange, 
Knowth and Dowth, which rank almost after the Pyra- 
mids of Egypt in the stupendous labor that must have 
been expended in their erection. 1 

"Most small English churches were built on a plan" 
says Micklethwaite, "which is purely 'Scottish' (that is, 
Irish) all through the Saxon time and beyond it. There 
are scores of them all over the country." The church of 
iDeerhurst, which dates from the eleventh century; Kirk- 
dale, near Kirby Moorside in Yorkshire (tenth century) ; 
Corhampton, in Hampshire; St. Martin's, Wareham; 
Wittering in Northamptonshire; and many others show 
the same plan almost complete. "I believe," adds 

i See "Irish Archaeological Remains," by Benedict Fitzpatrick. Encyclo- 
paedia Americana, 1919, Vol. 15. 

28l 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

Micklethwaite, "that the same is true of most of the very- 
many churches with Saxon west towers, but nothing else 
so old is to be seen in them." In spite of the prestige of 
Roman and Italian architecture the Irish or Scotic type 
"continued all through Saxon times and was passed on to 
those that came after." 1 

Old memorial crosses are found in the north and west 
of England, Northumbria and North Mercia, where Irish 
influence was strongest. They are unmistakably of Irish 
origin, ornamented with Irish interlaced patterns, and the 
inscriptions, on such as have them, are in Irish minuscules. 
The number of them must run into thousands, for there 
are more than five hundred in Yorkshire alone. The 
Bewcastle Cross, the Ruthwell Cross, Trumwine's Cross, 
Acca's Cross (formerly at Hexham now at Durham) are 
among the chief. The Normans destroyed many of the 
Irish and Anglo-Saxon crosses and sepulchral monuments 
and used them as wall stones. 

There is in existence still what is probably the shaft 
of the cross erected to the memory of Bishop Trumbert, 
whom Cuthbert succeeded in the see of Hexham. The 
stone was discovered at Yarm a few years ago and was 
then used as a weight for a mangle. It is now preserved 
at Durham. It bears an Anglian inscription in several 
lines, six of which are clear enough, written in Irish 
minuscules and adorned with Irish interlaced ornament. 
Another example is the cross of St. Oswin at Collingham 
with Irish interlaced ornament. It bears Oswin's name 
and was discovered in 1841. 

2. Seed of Irish Law and Opinion 

In other departments of knowledge and activity a 
similar tale has to be told. It would have been strange 

1 Archaeological Journal, vol. XXXIX. 

282 



Current of Irish Civilization in England 

if, with Irish influence so powerful in Britain, there had 
been no reflex in the larger isle of that wonderful develop- 
ment reaching to the remote past out of which had come 
the old Irish laws. It has been the habit to ascribe the 
similarities between the brehon laws of Ireland and the 
old Saxon laws to their common origin in Aryan custom. 
Calculations have been made as to how much of ancient 
British custom survived the Anglo-Saxon conquest and 
became incorporated in English law. The coincidence of 
particulars in early bodies of law has been held to prove 
nothing beyond the resemblance of all institutions in cer- 
tain stages. The existence of a real organic connection 
between what is called Celtic and English law is not 
denied, but the source of such affinity has been looked for 
in the general stock of tradition antecedent to the distinc- 
tion of race and tongue between German and Celt. 

This is looking for recondite explanations where more 
natural and plausible explanations are ready at hand. It 
is like ignoring a man's parents and going back to more 
remote ancestors for family resemblances. Irish influence 
and example appear a much more reasonable answer to 
questions as to the origin of certain English laws than 
learned discussions on Aryan traditions or references to 
Welsh laws. The English rulers, who, as we know from 
the words of Bede, looked up to the Irishmen of their 
age as their great exemplars and could find nothing better 
than what was the custom among them, were not likely 
to borrow from almost every other department of Irish 
life and ignore the highly developed Irish laws. The 
coincidences that exist between early Irish laws and insti- 
tutions and early English laws and institutions may well 
be taken as coincidences arising from simple borrowing, 
imitation and transplantation. 

283 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

The fashions, the ideas, the methods, the points of view, 
the motive, spirit, law and rule that formed the current 
of Irish civilization found its way into channels of 
English life more numerous than it is possible to trace. 
But Irish influence is easily followed in many other 
directions. Nearly all the monasteries of northern and 
central England had been founded by Irish monks and 
were tenanted by them and their disciples. They adopted 
the rules and usages of the Irish even in critical matters, 
like the practise of having double monasteries, so that 
monks were often placed under the rule of an abbess. 
These and other points of rule and ritual survived long 
after the Synod of Whitby and greatly distinguished the 
larger part of the English monasteries from those that 
had adopted the rule of St. Benedict. Thus there con- 
tinued a twofold character and divergence in matters of 
discipline, usage and ritual in the English monasteries. 
The churches over which Irish influence prevailed were 
easily distinguished from those in which continental 
custom had been introduced. This does not mean that 
there were actual divergences of doctrine; rather was 
it a variety of rite and custom. 

In the English monasteries the Irish rule continued to 
be followed long after Colman turned his back on the 
country and went to Ireland. Thus it is noted concerning 
Ceolwulf, to whom Bede dedicated his Historia Ecclesi- 
atica and who died in retirement in 760, that "when this 
king became a monk license was given to the brethren to 
drink wine and beer; for down to that time water and 
milk alone had been permitted them, according to the 
rule of St. Aidan." 1 

1 Simeon of Durham, II, 102. 

284 



Current of Irish Civilization in England 

3. Anglo-Saxon Mediocre Imitation of Irish 
Civilization 

Anglo-Saxon civilization, such as it became, was thus 
in a large measure a transplanted Irish civilization, and 
it partook of the mediocrity in comparison with the 
original that is the fate of all reproductions. Its. scholars 
were not numerous. Bede and Alcuin, the greatest of 
them, were collectors and distributors rather than thinkers 
and originators. For that "philosophy" and speculative 
activity for which the Irish schools were famous no 
English scholar showed an aptitude. No English school 
attained to the fame of even the lesser establishments in 
Ireland. In truth the career of such English schools as 
came into existence was brief and their end violent. No 
English scholar arose to challenge comparison in 
originality and strength of intellect with Eriugena, or 
Dungal or Sedulius Scotus. None of them in anything 
they have left to us have shown real knowledge of Greek 
literature or philosophy despite Theodore and Adrian 
and despite their close association with Irishmen. Though 
the literary works of medieval Irishmen have been sys- 
tematically destroyed, though we know the titles of many 
Irish works of which nothing but the titles have been 
preserved, the fragments that remain brilliantly prove the 
actuality and permanence of Irish intellectual supremacy, 
everlastingly helping others, but always keeping itself in 
the lead. Reference is made here mainly to Irish literary 
remains in Latin. Irish medieval literature in the Irish 
tongue is an isolated phenomenon of another class, a world 
in itself and a luminous link between the ancient and the 
modern age, of which here the treatment can be only 
indirect. 

All this converges in the same direction. Civilization 

285 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

in England traces its genealogy not to the work of Theo- 
dore and Adrian but to that of Aidan and his countrymen. 
An Englishman wedded to conventional views and de- 
sirous of cleaving to the conventional account may 
choose to put faith in legends that look to a different 
origin. He will find himself justified in doing so by 
distinguished examples. Cardinal Newman, for instance, 
gave credence to the imaginary story, often quoted, of a 
school in Wiltshire called for its classical learning 
"Greeklade," since corrupted into Cricklade, and trans- 
ferred afterwards to Oxford as one of the first elements 
of its university. It is true the name Greeklade occurs in 
Drayton's "Polyolbion." But Cricklade or Greeklade, so 
called from the beginning in the Saxon Chronicle, owes 
its nomenclature to its position on the Thames at a creek 
or iniet, like several places similarly situated and with 
the same prefix. Cricklade had no school founded by 
Theodore or Adrian and had such a school existed it 
would have gone the way of the other schools centuries 
before Oxford had even a beginning. But this legend is 
given as typical of others which might be cited, showing 
how men are led in the absence and sometimes in the face 
of fact to build a thesis agreeable to their prepossessions. 
Metaphors are deceptive. To picture Theodore and 
Adrian as sowing and planting the new civilization that 
was to come sounds plausible as long as we do not stop 
to consider how slowly civilization develops and how 
laboriously the powers of the mind are to be cultivated 
by individual effort alone. The teachers and preachers 
from the Continent had little permanent influence on 
England. We have seen that in whatever regions the 
Roman and Gallic missionaries preached their influence 
proved transitory and the natives fell back into heathen- 

286 



Current of Irish Civilization in England 

ism. Within a few years of Adrian's death hardly a 
soul in England knew Greek. In other departments of 
knowledge we find the same tale. Benet Biscop had 
brought glassmakers into England to build and adorn 
churches at Jarrow and Monkwearmouth. But fifty 
years later we find a pupil of Bede writing to a French 
bishop imploring him to send somebody capable of mak- 
ing glass, as the English did not possess the art. 

During the intervals in which the guiding hands of the 
Irish directors were taken from England, the political 
incapacity and general degradation of the English were 
nearly always asserted. The barbarism of the people was 
apparently too recent to permit it to be self-sustaining 
in the face of the sore trials of that epoch. The general 
slackness is indicated in the fact that for two centuries 
after the death of Alfred, no writer or thinker of note 
appeared among his countrymen. But there were of 
course graver evils. "A tendency to swinish self-indul- 
gence, and the sins of the flesh in some of their most 
degraded forms, had marred the national character." 1 
Thus much of the work of reformation and education 
which devoted Irishmen with so much patience had 
accomplished was largely undone. 2 

4. Incorrigible Brutality of English Aborigines 
To transform a conglomeration of savage tribes into 
a civilized people was a herculean task and it is little 

iHodgkin, Political History of England, p. 491. 

2 The English imitated the Irish habit of making pilgrimages to Rome, 
with dire results, particularly in the case of the female pilgrims, to their 
less vigorous morality. Thus Boniface in his letter to Cuthbert, archbishop 
of Canterbury, observes: "It would be some mitigation of the disgrace which 
is reflected upon your church if you in a synod and your princes cooperating 
with you, would make some regulation with respect to female pilgrimages 
to Rome. Among your women, even your nuns, who go in crowds to Rome, 
scarcely any return home unpolluted, almost all are ruined. There is scarcely 
a city in Lombardy, France or Gaul, in which some English prostitute or 
adventuress may not be found. This is a scandal, a disgrace to your whole 
church." (Epp., Boniface, 105.) 

287 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

wonder that the Irish missionaries should have won only 
partial success. The obstacles they encountered could 
not well have been greater. The history of the Heptarchy 
was like a history of kites and crows. 1 Not only were 
the English everlastingly fighting among themselves 
undoing the work of regeneration which Irish mission- 
aries with immense difficulty had set up among them, but 
the conquest of England was almost continuous from the 
time of Hengest and Horsa to the time of the Conqueror. 
The Anglo-Saxons slew the British, reducing some to 
slavery, fought the Irish colonies in the west and the 
Irish 'and Pict colonies in the north, massacred each other, 
and were then hewn down and cut to pieces by the Danes 
till the French conquerors arrived and laid both Danes 
and English by the heels. In a hundred years, out of 
fourteen kings of Northumbria, seven were slain and six 
deposed. Within two hundred years thirty kings and 
queens cast away their crowns and took refuge in monas- 
teries like Lindisfarne, where Irish missionaries had 
established oases of peace in the wilderness of disorder. 
Penda of Mercia killed five kings and at Bamborough 
heaped the ruins of all the surrounding villages into an 
enormous pile on which he projected the burning and 
extermination of all the English in Northumbria. 

In the tenth and eleventh centuries things showed little 
improvement over the seventh. Observe the manners of 
the highest ranks in the family of the last king. At a feast 
in the king's hall Harold was serving Edward the Con- 
fessor with wine, when Tostig, his brother, moved by 
envy, seized him by the hair. They were separated. 
Tostig went to Hereford, where Harold had ordered a 

1 "War was waged daily and everywhere; the aim of life was not to be 
slain, ransomed, mutilated, pillaged, hanged, and, of course, if it was a 
woman, violated." (Taine, Hist, of Eng. Lit., 37; Turner, Hist, of the Anglo- 
Saxons, II, 440, Laws of Ina.) 

288 



Current of Irish Civilization in England 

royal banquet to be prepared. There he seized his brother's 
attendants and cutting off their heads and limbs placed 
them in vessels of wine, ale, mead, and cider, and sent a 
message to the king: "If you go to your farm you will find 
there plenty of salt meat, but you will do well to carry 
some more with you." 

King Edwy having chosen as concubine Elgiva, his 
relation within the prohibited degrees, quitted the hall 
where he was drinking on the very day of his coronation 
to be with her. The nobles thought themselves insulted 
and immediately Abbot Dunstan went himself to seek the 
young man. "He found the adulteress, her mother and 
the king together on the bed of debauch. He dragged 
the king thence violently and setting the crown upon his 
head, brought him back to the nobles." 1 Afterwards 
Elgiva sent men to put out Dunstan's eyes, and in the 
tumults that followed saved herself and the king by hiding 
in the country, where they lived as brigands, but the men 
of the north having seized her "hamstrung her and then 
subjected her to the death she deserved." 2 "When we 
regard their deeds of violence, their ferocity, their canni- 
bal jests, we see that they are not far removed from the 
sea kings or from the followers of Odin, who ate raw 
flesh, hung men as victims on the sacred trees of Upsala, 
and killed themselves to make sure of dying, as they had 
lived, in blood." 3 

5. Killing English Learning at Its Birth 

"In vain the great spirits of this age endeavor to link 
themselves to the relics of the fine ancient civilization and 

1 Vita S. Dustani, by the Monk Osbern, Anglia Sacra, II. 

2 See Turner, Hist, of the Anglo-Saxons, II, 216. 

3 Taine, Hist, of English Lit., I, 39. Tantae saevitiae erant fratres illi 
(the last king) quod, cum alicujus nitidem villam conspicerem, dominatorem 
de nocte interflci uberent, totamque progeniem illius possessionemque defunct 
obtinerent. Henry of Huntingdon, VI, 367. Turner, III, 27. 

20 28 9 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

to raise themselves above the chaotic and muddy ignorance 
in which the others flounder. They are almost alone, and 
on their death the others sink again into the mire." 1 They 
feel their impotence and decrepitude, and are filled with 
gloom and foreboding for their country and countrymen. 
The Synod of Pincanhalth, held in 790, recalls, as in an 
epitaph, the "days when we had righteous kings and 
dukes and bishops, of whose wisdom Northumbria still 
smells sweetly." Bede, dividing the history of the world 
into six periods, says that the fifth, which stretches from 
the return of Babylon to the birth of Christ, is the senile 
period; the sixth is the present "aetas decrepita, totius 
morte saeculi consummanda." The last paragraph of 
Bede's history ends in a note of doubt concerning times 
"so filled with commotions that it cannot yet be known 
what is to be said concerning them or what end they will 
have." His pessimism was well founded. Wars and 
dissensions were in a fair way to kill English learning but 
little after its birth and the work of destruction begun 
by the English themselves was almost carried to comple- 
tion by the Danes. Outside the work of Alcuin and Alfred 
there is almost a literary waste from the eighth century 
to the revival of Anglo-Latin literature in the twelfth, 
and this among the French conquerors. No historian of 
like mold with Bede was to arise in the succeeding cen- 
turies and though the book of Simeon of Durham pre- 
serves the remnants of a lost Northumbrian history the 
period from the death of Bede to 870 is difficult and dark 
of comprehension in English history. There are periods 
in English history, as during the century and a half that 
preceded the coming of Augustine, and the century and 
a half that followed the French conquest, when the 

iTaane, I. 68. 

290 



Current of Irish Civilization in England 

English people appear to sink out of sight and History 
with mute eloquence draws a curtain over the indescriba- 
ble scene, and this period, including part of the eighth 
and part of the ninth century, constitutes one of these 
historical blanks. 1 The words of King Alfred give us 
some indication of the demoralization that had been pro- 
ceeding. 

Referring to the decay of learning, especially among the 
religious orders, he observes: "So clean it (learning) was 
ruined among the English people that there were very 
few on this side of the Humber who could understand 
their service in English or declare forth an epistle out 
of Latin into English ; and I think there were not many 
beyond the Humber. So few such there were that I 
cannot think of a single one to the south of the Thames 
when I began to reign. To God Almighty be thanks that 
we have any teacher in stall." Alfred's efforts to educate 
his people, related by himself and Asser, were pathetic. 
With the help of the foreign scholars around him he 
sought to translate into Saxon parts of the Bible, and of 
the works of Boethius, Orosius, 2 and Pope Gregory. But 
the translations bear witness chiefly to the barbarism of 
those for whom they were intended. The language is 
infantile. "He adapts the text to bring it down to their 
intelligence, the pretty verses of Boethius, somewhat pre- 
tentious, labored, elegant, crowded with classical allu- 
sions of a refined and compact style worthy of Seneca, 
became an artless, long-drawn-out and yet desultory prose 

1 The scantiness and imperfection of early English authorities have led 
to much imaginative writing on the part of historians. Thus Green begins 
a part of his history with the observation: "Of the temper and life of the 
folk in this older England we know little," and then proceeds to give minute 
details regarding political and social organizations, covering several pages. 
He has given birth to a school of historians who write in the same high 
falsetto. 

2 The Anglo-Saxon version has this reference to Ireland: — "Igbernia baet 
we Scotland hatad" — "Hibernia which we call Scotland." 

29I 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

like a nurse's fairy-tale, explaining everything, recom- 
mencing and breaking off its phrases, making ten turns 
about a simple detail, so low was it necessary to stoop to 
the level of this new intelligence, which had never thought 
or known anything." 1 And the ignorance is such that the 
teacher himself needs correction. 

The arrival of the Danes merely accentuated a condi- 
tion that had arisen from internal causes and that left 
the English almost as putty in their hands. The 
demoralization wrought by the terror of the Danish 
sword never left the natives till the time came when they 
fell an easy prey to a handful of Frenchmen from Nor- 
mandy and Angevin. The picture painted by Wulfstan, 
bishop of Worcester, of the aborigines of the country is 
painful in the pitifulness of the degradation it depicts and 
the total loss of manhood that had fallen on the once fierce 
Saxons. The Danes, whom Irish power wielded by King 
Brian had crushed, were able nevertheless to turn England 
into a compound, and its inhabitants into a slave popula- 
tion. Progress and learning under such conditions were 
ludicrous dreams, and beneath the deep of ignorance 
which Alfred had depicted there were other and cruder 
deeps into which the unresisting English were thrust by 
their oppressors. It is hard to conceive of the forms of 
cruelty which Danish brutality could have employed so 
to subdue the English to moods meeker than that of lambs 
led to the slaughter. "For a long time now," says 
Wulfstan in his sermon Ad Anglos, still extant in Anglo- 
Saxon, "there has been no goodness among us either at 
home or abroad, but there has been ravaging and onset on 
every side again and again. The English have now for a 
long time been always beaten in battle and made great 

iTaine, Hist, of Eng. Lit.. I. 64. 

292 



Current of Irish Civilization in England 

cowards, through God's wrath; and the sea robbers so 
strong, by God's allowance, that often in a fight one of 
them will put to flight ten of the English, sometimes less, 
sometimes more, all for our sins. A thrall often binds 
fast the thegn who was his lord and makes him a thrall, 
through the wrath of God. Wala for the wretchedness, 
and Wala for the world-shame which now the English 
have, all through God's wrath. Often two or three pirates 
drive a drove of Christian men huddled together from sea 
to sea, out through the people, to the world-shame of us 
all, if we could a sooth know any shame at all, if we would 
ever understand it aright. But all the disgrace we are 
always bearing we dutifully pay for to those who shame 
us. We are for ever paying them and they ill use us 
daily. They harry and they burn, they plunder and rob 
and they carry off to ships ; and lo, what is there any other 
in all these happenings save the wrath of God clear and 
plain upon this people." 

6. Irish Authority Gives Way to French 
It was amid conditions such as these that the Irish 
missionaries and schoolmen, many of them belonging to 
the bluest Milesian blood, impelled solely by supernatural 
motives, worked for the reclamation of the English. It 
is astonishing that most of them did not lose their lives 
surrounded as they were with the barbarian lust of mur- 
der. On the Continent, particularly in Germany, many 
of the Irish missionaries met violent deaths. In England 
no such fate awaited them. The sentiment of adoration 
which medieval Englishmen cherished for the authorita- 
tive Irishmen who walked among them stayed their 
homicidal hands and quelled their savage yells even when 
thirsting for their kinsmen's blood. A rebuke from an 
Irish bishop was often potent enough to bring even the 

293 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

English kings prostrate at his feet. Such was the magic 
which the prestige of an immemorial civilization, typified 
in its nobler representatives, worked on a national mind 
slowly shedding the barbarism of ages. To this spell 
which the Irish will cast over a stolid, superstitious and 
undeveloped people, in whom a powerful war hysteria 
flowed as a perpetual undercurrent, are we to look for the 
root of the surprising results achieved by them, results 
which under like conditions could have been achieved by 
no other race under Heaven. 

The so-called Norman 1 Conquest marked the passing of 
Irish authority and influence over the English and the 
substitution in an infinitely harsher and more strongly 
organized form of French influence and authority. The 
guide, cicerone and friend gave way to the military con- 
queror and master. The hand that held the cross, the pil- 
grim's staff, and the illuminated manuscript was followed 
by the hand that wielded the sword and the thonged whip. 
The apostles of law and order, humanity and learning, 
were followed by the apostles of the thumb screw and 
crucet house, of Tenserie and the Sachentege. Human 
annals contain little that exceeds in inhumanity the retri- 
butions which the French conquerors of the English laid 
on the people they thenceforth trod beneath their feet. 2 

1 The men who, under William the Conqueror, took England from the 
English, called themselves and were called not Normans, but Francii or 
Frenchmen, which was what they were. They came from every province in 
France — Maine, Anjou, Poitou, Brittany, Ile-de-France, Aquitaine, Burgundy, 
Flanders — and even from beyond the Alps and Pyrenees. Among- those who 
belonged to Normandy, the Northman strain had been merged by inter- 
marriage, and Northman speech and custom had totally disappeared. The 
French conquerors of England repudiated all kinship with any Northern or 
German people. They could be called Normans chiefly in the sense that the 
expedition set out from Normandy under the Duke of that province. 

2 Consult the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the reign of Stephen, Anno 1137. 
Maddened by cruelty, the hapless natives sometimes waylaid their French 
masters and cut their throats, stripping the corpse and mutilating the 
features and members so that it would be impossible to tell whether it was 
French or English, the object being to escape the fines and punishments laid 
on all the inhabitants of the neighborhood. It was then enacted that the 
corpse should be deemed French unless a jury found it was only an English- 
man. This law, called the presentment of "Englischerie," with its attendant 
cruelties, lasted to the reign of Edward III. 

294 



Current of Irish Civilization in England 

From that time on the English nation was represented 
by a slave population of terror-stricken boors and hinds, 
looking up to their foreign masters with the awe with 
which the savage regards his idol. Little wonder that 
from that time on all that was French was regarded as 
sacrosanct and anointed, and all that was Anglo-Saxon was 
regarded as mean and base. To be English was to be a 
churl and a villein, a natural-born clod and criminal, tax- 
able and floggable at will, so that "it was considered a 
disgrace to be called an Englishman." 1 Time deepened 
rather than mitigated the national degradation till an 
abasement under the Tudors was reached lower than that 
ever touched by any other European people. 

Culture in England thenceforth was simply French 
culture and even in a more modern age when the English- 
man had gained a little freedom his chief method of im- 
proving himself was to play the sedulous ape to the 
Frenchman as he had before played the sedulous ape to 
the Irishman. The university of Oxford was simply a 
branch, established by Frenchmen, of the university of 
Paris, which gave it its organization and its professors. 2 
The English legal system and national organization were 
in reality a transplanted French system and transplanted 

lUt Anglum vocari foret opprobrio (Matthew of Paris, Bk. I, c. 12). The 
native English of both sexes for quite trivial offenses had their noses and 
ears cut off or were stript naked and brutally whipt through the public 
streets or at the cart's tail, without regard to tender or advanced age. This 
continued for centuries. In 1597, a new law, passed in 22 Henry VIII, was 
slightly mitigated, the victims being stript only "from the middle up- 
wards, and whipt till the body should be bloody." Lists of persons whipt, 
some of them aged women and young children, were kept in parish books 
and church registers (See Burn's Justice, Vol. V, 501; Notes and Queries, Vol. 
XVII, 327, 425, 568; Book of Days, I, 598-601). Brutalities of this degrading 
character were totally unknown in Irish law. 

2 It is remarkable that students from the four provinces of Ireland were 
at Oxford at a date almost as early as that of the admission of the English, 
forming one of the most important "Southern Nations." From out of their 
ranks appeared the most powerful mind ever known at Oxford, Duns Scotus, 
who dying at thirty-four, left behind a record of work, only once or twice 
exceeded in human history. (See Rashdall, University II, 362; Macleane, Pem- 
broke College, 45; Mrs. Green, Making of Ireland and Its Undoing, 266-7, 289; 
Milman, History of Latin Christianity, VI, 466-7.) 

295 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

French organization, which gave both nine tenths of their 
phraseology. It was the French who added Romance 
elements of refinement to the English tongue, to them for 
three centuries an alien speech, and raised what had 
remained for a thousand years the gross dialect of clod- 
hoppers and scullions to the dignity of a literary vehicle. 1 
The architects and artizans who built the castles and 
fortresses, the cathedrals, abbeys and parish churches of 
England were French, as they had formerly been Irish. 
For the immediate centuries that followed the conquest 
the history of England was the history of the French 
population of England and had hardly any reference to 
the submerged English. The French kings of England 
showed little disposition to live there. Henry II spent 
most of his life in France. Richard Cceur de Lion, dur- 
ing a reign of ten years, spent only a month or two in 
England. Magna Carta is usually represented as a pre- 
eminently English document, and Parliament as a 
preeminently English institution. The truth is the En- 
glish had about as much to do with the winning of Magna 
Carta 2 and the establishment of Parliament, as the negroes 
and red men of America had in the writing of the Con- 
stitution of the United States and the establishment of 
Congress. The movement among the French in France 
that issued in the local parlements of Champagne, Prov- 
ence, Brittany and Languedoc, and in the national Parle- 
ment or Estates General, was precisely the movement 
among the French in England that issued in the Parle- 
ment or assembly of the estates in England. The thing 

i Chaucer, for example, was wholly French in blood. He lived much abroad 
and his works are translations and adaptations of Latin, French and Italian 
models. Piers the Plowman represented the highest flight to which the 
native muse attained. 

2 The rights thus won by the French were completely surrendered without 
a fight to Henry VIII by the English three centuries later. 

296 



Current of Irish Civilization in England 

as well as the name was entirely French. And so through 
the whole national life of England. It is only by the 
accident of a defeated sovereign's fear that his English 
province might go the way of Normandy and Guienne 
that England is not to-day a French province, as it long 
was, instead of an English kingdom. 

In 1 169, Diarmuid, King of Leinster, a bad character 
who had been driven out of Ireland, after promises of 
vassalage to Henry II in France if he would help him to 
recover his kingdom, brought over from Wales to Ireland 
some Cambro-French 1 knights and men-at-arms led by 
Richard de Clare, earl of Striguil. 2 King Diarmuid with 
their help won a number of battles and by way of reward- 
ing his foreign auxiliaries bestowed the hand of his 
daughter Eva on Richard and lands and dignities on 
others of his followers. Henry II crossed to Ireland in 
1 171 and entertained and was entertained by a number 
of Irish princes. There was no battle and the entire pro- 
ceedings appear to have been amicable. Yet these events 
have been described as a Norman conquest 3 of Ireland 
and even as an "English conquest." 4 The position in the 
country attained by this first wave of Cambro-French 
emigres represented the high water-mark of foreign in- 
fluence in Ireland during the next 400 years. Once settled 

1 The Norman-French, who would as soon have married into a negro as 
into a native Anglo-Saxon family, married freely with the Welsh. Thus 
the FitzHenrys, FitzGeralds, de Barries, de Cogans and FitzStephens, who 
emigrated to Ireland were a mixture of French and Welsh, being descended « 
from Nesta, daughter of Rhys Ap Tudor, Prince of South Wales. (Giraldusi ^ . 
Cambrensis, p. 183, genealogical table.) For a remarkable Norman com- T &%£)( 
parative estimate of the Welsh and English see p. 86 note. See also Macaulay, Ur j'ri 
History of England, I, 15. 

2 This man who couldn't speak a sentence in English has been absurdly 

given the English name of "Strongbow," never heard of till four centuries jO\-&W\^ 
after his death and then in an annotation of Camden — dictus Strongbow, for- 
tis arcus. 

3 Giraldus, who was the first to use the term, "conquest" (expugnatio) 
repeats a prophecy to the effect that Ireland would never be really conquered 
till just before the Day of Judgment. (Opera, V, p. 385.) 

4 This is one of the numerous inanities in D' Alton's History of Ireland. 

297 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

in Ireland the foreigner began to lose his foreignness 1 
and became merged in the brilliant life around him. The 
first settlers married the daughters of Irishmen of equal 
station, and the generation that followed were born Irish- 
men with kinsmen over all Ireland. They abandoned 
the French for the Irish tongue, took to Irish apparel and 
custom, appealed from the meannesses of the feudal to 
the fairness and equity of Irish law, and entered battle 
as Irish clansmen and followers of Irish kings with Irish 
battle-cries on their lips. The destruction of Irish records 
has given the records of the foreign colony or pale in 
Ireland a value out of all proportion to their importance. 
There was not a period during these 400 years when that 
foreign colony might not have been extirpated or expelled. 
But the truth is that Ireland had nothing but welcome for 
the foreigners — Norman, French, Cambro-French, and 
Flemish, attended at times by their English serfs — who 
sought a home on her soil, tolerating even their local 
courts and "parliaments" — really obscure meetings of 
foreign officials — where at a later date immigrant "En- 
glish Hobbes" as the older settlers called them — buddagh 
Sassenach ("Saxon clowns or yokels") was the Irish 
sobriquet — passed "Statutes of Kilkenny" against the Irish 
enemy, whose lands they coveted and whose free tenure 
they envied. This Irish hospitality was true wisdom, for 
before the sixteenth century the foreign pale or colony 
in Ireland had almost ceased to be. 2 

1 The "foreigners had given up their foreignness for a pure mind, their 
Burliness for good manners, and their stubbornness for sweet mildness, and 
Who had given up their perverseness for hospitality" (Tribes and Customs of 
Hy Many, ed., O'Donovan, 1843, p. 136), c. 1315. 

2 The futile expedition of Richard II (1399) was the only one ever at- 
tempted by the English against the Irish people before the sixteenth century. 
Art MacMurrough, King of Leinster, told Richard that he (King Art) "would 
not submit, that he was the rightful King of Leinster and would never cease 
from war and the defense of his country until his death, and that the wish 
to deprive him of it by conquest, was unlawful" (Gilbert's Viceroys, p. 281). 
Lieinster alone proved more than a match for Richard, whose expedition was 
a disastrous failure and indeed proved a prime factor in depriving him of 
the English crown. 

298 



Current of Irish Civilization in England 



The idea of conquering Ireland— and indeed Wales and 
Scotland as well— first took practical shape in the bloody- 
minded brain of Henry VIII, a crowned megalomaniac 
brute and savage, the strangler, hangman, disemboweler, 
mutilator and burner, amid unending shrieks to Heaven, 
of tens of thousands of the unresisting English, 1 the first 
to assume the style of "Your Majesty" and the title of 
King of Ireland, and the first English imperialist, whose 
diversion it was to set one half of his panic-stricken sub- 
jects spying upon, torturing and killing the other half, 
his reign reading like a monstrous tragedy of (Edipodean 
incests and Thyestean feasts. The war of conquest set on 
foot by the Tudor despot was inconclusively concluded by 
William of Orange at Aughrim over a century and a 
half later. 2 The sixteenth century opened in calm for Ire- 
land. The Irish and the English had lived side by side for 
over a thousand years. Fortune up to that time had greatly 
favored the smaller island, in which despotism appeared 
to be unable to breathe, and in the sixteenth century the 
difference between Ireland and England in population 
and resources any more than in area was not great. 
Almost as many people spoke Irish as spoke English. In 
the opening calm of that century there was nothing to 
forecast the unparalleled tragedy that was to fall on the 
one, or the unparalleled territorial loot that was to fall to 
the other. The words "empire" and "imperial" had an 
uncanny fascination for Henry VIII, 3 who lived the first 

i Henry is computed to have put 72,000 persons to death. There was only 
one step from the lash and the branding iron to the gallows and disembowel- 
ment, and he even enacted a Boiling Act under which people were boiled alive 
at Smithfield. 

2 The physical conquest of Ireland, begun in 1534, the combined forces of 
England, Scotland and Wales failed to bring to an end before 1691, a period 
of 157 years. ' This is an illuminating commentary on talk about a conquest 
by Henry II, in which no battle was fought. 

3 He wanted to begin by uniting Wales and Scotland with England and 
calling himself Emperor (and Pope) of Great Britain. 

299 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

part of his life in gaiety and arrogance, and the latter 
part swollen to a dreadful bulk of corpulency with run- 
ning and loathsomely smelling sores, and who died hor- 
ribly the death of persecutors, such as Lactantius 
describes. A future historian of empires may have cause 
to read a moral and draw an analogy from the course and 
end of persecuting empires and the careers and fate of 
the persecutors who first conceived them and endowed 
them with their spirit. 



Forcubus caichduini imbia arrath inlebran colli 
aratardda bendact forainmain in truagain rodscribai. — 
Colophon from the Book of Deir, ninth century. 



300 



nastic 
lithe 
n in 
bund 




3! 




Universities and Schools 
places shown in Scotia 
England began as Irish f 
rtions, Thus from the lri< 


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o 


m 
O 

w 
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> 
r 


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o 




H 


w 


^ 




APPENDICES 



APPENDIX A 
THE ENGLISH SLAVE POPULATION IN IRELAND 

THE relative positions of the Irish and English peo- 
ples in respect to education, commerce, wealth and 
civilized development, are indicated more clearly 
than through any other criterion by the large English 
slave population in Ireland. Slaves were numerous in 
medieval Ireland and — the subject is worth dwelling 
upon, for English historians have shrouded the facts in 
a disguise of specious phrases — most of these slaves were 
English men and women, English boys and girls, traded 
for export to slave dealers in English ports by their own 
degraded fathers and mothers and other more powerful 
relatives. 

There is little testimony more conclusive of Ireland's 
national and social prestige in those ages than the fact 
that while foreign slaves, and particularly English slaves, 
were so plentiful in the island, there is no record of Irish- 
men being traded as slaves either in Britain or on the Con- 
tinent. That Irishmen should always have been the pur- 
chasers and never the purchased in this traffic of human 
merchandise, which naturally represented then as in other 
ages the most valuable of personal property, reveals to 
us in convincing fashion the enormous width of the gulf, 
indicated in many other directions, that separated the 
immemorial Irish nation from the welter of tribes on 
the other side of the channel. 

301 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

The non-free population in Ireland was divided into 
three classes: Bothach, Sencleithe, and Fudir. The 
individuals belonging to the first two divisions were herds- 
men, laborers, squatters on waste lands, horseboys, hang- 
ers-on, and jobbers of various kinds — all poor and 
dependent. But they enjoyed the great advantage of 
belonging to the clan tho debarred from most of its privi- 
leges. 

The third class — the Fudirs — constituted the lowest of 
the three. They were not members of the clan and con- 
sequently had no right of residence, tho they were per- 
mitted by the chief to live within the territory from 
which they might be expelled at any moment. The 
Fudirs themselves were again divided into two classes, 
a higher and a lower, called saer-fudir and daer-fudirs 
(free and bond). The daer-fudirs, the lowest and most 
dependent of all, consisted of escaped criminals, captives 
taken in battle or raids, convicts respited from death, and 
purchased slaves. The fudirs were nearly all strangers 
or foreigners, and it was to this class that the English 
slaves in Ireland belonged. 1 

The Anglo-Saxons were a leading slave race of the 
Middle Ages and in respect to the civilized world of 
Ireland, Gaul and Italy, occupied a position akin to that 
of the colored aborigines of Africa in respect to the civi- 
lized nations of Europe in recent times. Traffic in English 
slaves was as prevalent throughout Europe in the Middle 
Ages as negro slavery became in Africa and America at 
a later epoch, but in no land were English slaves more 
numerous than in Ireland. The traffic continued till at 
least the thirteenth century and probably dated back to 
the fifth, for references to widespread Anglo-Saxon slav- 

i Joyce, Social History, I, 162-166. 

302 



Appendices 

ery are numerous in the sixth. 1 In Irish medieval litera- 
ture there are numerous references to slaves brought from 
beyond the sea to Ireland, most of whom must have been 
English. In the sixth century Jewish slave dealers were 
in the habit of selling in Gaul, Italy and other countries 
slaves obtained in England. The story is well known of 
the English slaves in the market place at Rome whose fair 
hair and complexion, differing from those of the South, 
drew Gregory's attention. The Pope also in 595 wrote 
to Candidus, a priest in Gaul, enjoining him to redeem 
English slaves who might be trained as monks and sent 
to Rome, 2 and some commentators believe that it was this 
letter of Gregory's that gave rise to the obviously 
apocryphal angel-story of the slave boys in Rome. St. 
Eligius of France is recorded as buying and ransoming 
English slaves. St. Aidan, the apostle of Northumbria, 
as we have seen, used most of his superfluous wealth in 
the redemption of Anglo-Saxon males and made some of 
them auxiliaries in the regeneration of the aborigines of 
the island. 

Slaves began to be exported from England almost from 
the period of its settlement by tribes from Germany. 
There had been a certain amount of traffic in British 
slaves during the Roman period, as the biographies of 
Irishmen bearing on that period bear witness, but this 
earlier traffic was on a scale very much smaller than that 
which the English traffic attained. Selling men beyond the 
seas is mentioned in the Kentish laws as an alternative to 

1 William of Malmesbury talks of the practice (morem) as "vetustis- 
simum" "inveteratum," and handed down from ancestors to their descend- 
ants (a proavis in nepotes transfusum) (Anglia Sacra II, p. 258). 

2 "We desire thy Love to procure with the money thou mayst receive 
clothing' for the poor or English boys of about seventeen or eighteen years 
of age, who may profit by being given to God in monasteries" (Epistles of 
St. Gregory, Book VI, Ep. VII, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Vol. XII, p. 
190). 

303 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

capital punishment. The dooms of Ina forbade the men 
of Wessex to sell a countryman beyond the seas, even if 
he were really a slave or justly condemned to slavery: 
"If anyone sell his own countryman, bond or free, tho 
he be guilty, overseas, let him pay for them according to 
his wer." 1 The place overseas from Wessex was mani- 
festly Ireland. The prohibitions are repeated down to 
Ethelred's "that Christian men and condemned be not 
sold out of the country, especially into a heathen nation; 
and be it jealously guarded against that those souls perish 
not that Christ bought with his own life" — in which we 
sense the admonition of Irish clerics against a traffic dis- 
honoring alike to the principals and the victim. They 
are more forcibly exprest in the canons and penitentials 
of the English Church. Archbishop Theodore prohibited 
the selling of children into slavery by parents after the 
age of seven. Ecgberht of York threatened with excom- 
munication on the sale of a child or of kinsfolk. 

The Danes, after they had defeated the English, herded 
them together, and attached them to themselves as body 
slaves and personal property. A great many of them 
they sent over the sea and delivered to continental deal- 
ers. William of Malmesbury says of Canute's sister, 
the wife of Godwin, that "she was in the habit of pur- 
chasing companies of slaves in England and sending them 
into Denmark; more especially girls whose good looks 
and age made them of greater value that she might 
accumulate money by this horrible traffic." 2 The invad- 
ing French from Normandy and the other French prov- 
inces, following the Danes, took advantage of the general 
degradation of the country and the wealth of Franco-Nor- 

iStubbs, Select Charters, p. 61. 

2De Gestis Regum, Lib. II, c. 13 (Giles edition, p. 222). 

304 



Appendices 

man nobles was said sometimes to spring from the breed- 
ing of Anglo-Saxon slaves for the market. 1 

The testimony bearing on the traffic points to an inde- 
scribable demoralization among the English and brings 
home some of the herculean difficulties with which the 
Irish missionaries had to contend in a milieu where brutal 
and suicidal excess had resulted in dissolving the foun- 
dations of even natural virtue and decency. Thus Wil- 
liam of Malmesbury, describing conditions in England, 
remarks: "Unnatural as was such conduct it was often 
the fact that heads of families, after seducing the women 
of their household, either sold them to other men or to 
houses of bad repute." 2 In the Latin life of Wulstan, 
bishop of Worcester (d. 1022) founded on the Anglo- 
Saxon life of Coleman, we are told that it was a com- 
mon sight all over England to see long trains of young 
men and women of the English chained together and 
marched by slave dealers to the neighboring ports to be 
shipt to Ireland as slaves. 3 The unfortunates were 
purchased by slavedrivers from their own families and 
were treated with a cruelty that made them, as the biog- 
raphy tells us, an object of pity even to the barbarous 
West Saxons through whose villages they were marched 
on their way to the sea. 4 The native vendors of the girls 
were in the habit of putting them in a condition of 

1 The Irish Scots in North Britain, in line with their compatriots in Ire- 
land, were large owners of English slaves. Thus Symeon of Durham (Historia 
Regum, II, 192) observes: "Scotland was filled with slaves and handmaids 
of the English race so that even to this day cannot be found, I do not say a 
hamlet, but even a hut, without them." Symeon explains this large slave 
population by the captures of prisoners after the Battle of Carman (1018) 
in the course of which the Irish forces in Scotland inflicted a terrible 
defeat on the English; but the explanation is obviously insufficient. The greater 
number of the slaves must have come from trading between the Irish in 
Scotland and the English. 

2De Gestis Regum, Lib. Ill (Giles, ed., p. 279). 

3Videres et gemeres concatenates sunibus miserorum ordines et utriusque 
sexus adolescentes (Anglia Sacra II, p. 258). 

4 Barbaris miserationi essent (Ibid.). 

21 305 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

pregnancy in the hope that they might thus fetch a higher 
price from the Irish merchants and owners of estates to 
whom they were to be consigned. 1 The commerce was 
brisk — "day after day they were exposed for sale, and 
day after day they were sold." 2 

Writers like William of Malmesbury make it clear 
that there were numerous slave-markets throughout 
England, and numerous ports whence the slaves were 
shipt, but Bristol, being directly opposite Ireland where 
families were habituated to the use and ownership of 
English slaves, and being convenient to the aborigines 
of the English hinterland who served as merchandise in 
the traffic, was the chief port of embarkation. 3 It appears 
that the Irish and continental merchants were able to pay 
three or four times the rate that ruled in England where 
the native chattel was cheap and where poverty was rife. 
The traffic appeared quite the natural thing to the English 
themselves, who knew no better and who resented the efforts 
to rid them of a vice which brought them profit. Franco- 
Norman writers are however unmeasured in their pro- 
tests and in their expressions of horror over it, and par- 
ticularly over the depravity involving so many unnatural 
forms of vice. 4 

The canker had eaten its way into the national life at 
an early date so that even church dignitaries thought 
themselves justified in enslaving their compatriots. .Thus 

lAncillasque prius ludibrio lecti habitas jamque praegnantes venum pro- 
ponebant (Ibid.). 

2 Cotidie prostitui, cotidie venitari (Ibid.). 

3Vicus est maritimus Brichstou dictus, a quo rector cursu in Hiberniam 
transmittitur, ideoque illius terrae barbariei accomodus. Hujus indigenae 
cum caeteris ex Anglia cause mercimontii saepae in Hiberniam annavigant. . . 
Homines enim ex omni Anglia coemptos majoris spe quaestus in Hiberniam 
distrahebant. (Anglia Sacra II, p. 258.) 

4 Facinus execrandum, dedecus miserabile, nee belluini affectus memores 
homines, necessitudines suas, ipsum postremo sanguinem suam servituti ad- 
dicere. (Anglia Sacra II, p. 258.) 

306 



Appendices 

we find Boniface writing to Fortheri, bishop of Sher- 
borne, supporting the request of a man named Eppa for 
the release of the latter's sister who had been kept in 
bondage (captivae puellae) by Beorwald, abbot of Glas- 
tonbury, and offering a ransom of thirty solidi for her 
emancipation in order that she might spend the rest of her 
life among her own people instead of in slavery. 1 

The contemporary Irish literature bearing on the traf- 
fic is copious and it supplements and illustrates the testi- 
mony from outside sources. Thus the Leabar na g-Ceart, 
a remarkable tenth century Irish work containing ele- 
ments very much older and throwing a flood of light on 
medieval forms of revenue in Ireland, has repeated refer- 
ences to slaves brought into Ireland from over the sea, 
describing them for the most part as "foreigners without 
Gaelic," that is, foreigners who could not speak Irish. 
From one reference it would appear that the ancestors of 
the family of Ua Dubhlaighe, Anglicized O'Dooley, were 
large owners of English slaves: 

Entitled is the stout king of Fera Tulach 

To six steeds from the middle of boats, 

Six swords, six red shields 

And six foreigners without Gaedhealga 2 (Irish). 

Fera Tulach has the meaning of "men of the hills" and 
is the name now applied to the barony of Feartullagh, in 
Westmeath. After the establishment o'f surnames the 
chief family in this territory took the surname of Ua 
Dubhlaighe. 3 ' 

Another reference shows that English slaves figured in 

1 Jaffe, Mon. Mag. 7. In another letter to Cuthbert, archbishop of Canter- 
bury, Boniface severely animadverts on the practice of English pilgrimages 
to Rome and the frailty of the females taking part in them, declaring that 
as a result there was hardly a city in Lombardy or France that had not an 
English prostitute. (Haddan and Stubbs, iii, 381.) 

2 Leabar na g-Ceart, or Book of Rights, translated by O'Donovan, p. 181. 

3 See also O'Hart, Irish Pedigrees, under Ua Dubhlaighe or Dooley. 

3©7 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

the stipends presented by the monarch of Ireland to the 
provincial and subsidiary kings: 

The stipend of the king of Brugh-righ 

From the King of Eire (Ireland) without sorrow 

Ten tunics, brown red 

And ten foreigners without Gaedhealga. * 

Again among the stipends of the king of Cashel to the 
kings of his territories we have: 

Eight bondmen, eight brown-haired women 
To the of the Deise, and ten ships, 
Eight shields, eight swords for wounding, 
And eight horses (brought) across the green sea. 2 

Among the payments and stipends of the king of 
Aileach to his chieftainries and tribes for refection and 
escort enumerated in the Leabhar na g-Ceart are given : 

Entitled is the king of Cineal Aedha 

To five shields, five slender swords, 

Five bondmen (brought) over the bristling surface of the sea 

Five fair-haired, truly fine women. a 

Other stipends for the king of Aileach are mentioned: 

Entitled is the king of Inis Eoghain 

To six bondmen — no great gratuity, 

Seven steeds, six women (brought) over the great sea, 

Seven beautiful horns for drinking. 4 

In view of the evidence given by English chroniclers 
there can be hardly any doubt that these foreign slaves 
"without Gaelic" were all or nearly all English, and the 
numerous references to them, which could be greatly 
added to, give us an idea of the volume of the traffic. 
Irish missionaries in England and occasional decent 
Englishmen did what they could to restrain the evil, which 

i Leabar na g-Ceart, translated by O'Donovan, p. 87. 
2 Leabar na g-Ceart, p. 73. 
8 Page 131. 
4 Page 133. 

308 



Appendices 

attained dimensions so notorious that even the distant 
pope had to take a hand in denouncing it. Thus the 
lesson of the feast of St. Wulstan tells us that he was 
able, shortly before the conquest, to "bring the citizens 
of Bristol to a better mind, who in spite of king and 
pope, had persisted in the nefarious practise of selling 
their own children into slavery." 1 

The truth is that Wulstan did not cure them and the 
traffic continued long after his death. Anselm, the Pied- 
montese archbishop of Canterbury, and successor to his 
countryman, Lanfranc, likewise worked in vain to cure 
the evil, tho doubtless they all helped to abate it. 

One obstacle to the extinction of the traffic was that 
the taxes on it brought money into the royal exchequer. 
With respect to its supposed cessation William of 
Malmesbury says: 2 "The credit for this transaction I do 
not know whether to attribute to Lanfranc or to Wulstan, 
who would scarcely have induced the king, reluctant 
from the profit it produced him, to this measure, had not 
Lanfranc commended it, and Wulstan, powerful through 
the sanctity of his character, commended it by episcopal 
authority." 3 

According to the tract on Ui Maine, the patrimony 
in Connaught of the Ua Ceallaigh, or O'Kelly family, 
preserved in the Book of Leacan, 4 the king of Ui Maine 
was entitled to ten steeds, ten foreigners (slaves), ten 
standards, and ten mantles (mantals) to be paid by the 

i The lesson is taken from the Coleman and Malmesbury life, reproduced 
in Anglia Sacra II, 241-270. 

2 De Gestis Regum, Lib. III. 

s The same author elsewhere informs us that the kings of Ireland 
bestowed many favors on "Wulstan, probably because of his efforts against the 
slave trade and its accompanying evils, for the Irish princes on other 
occasions gave evidence of their feeling that the traffic was dishonoring to 
those who bought and owned slaves apart from the degradation to the 
unfortunates themselves. (Anglia Sacra II, 249.) 

4 See Tribes and Customs of Hy-Many, pp. 92, 93. 

309 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

King of Connaught. As this differs from the subsidy- 
mentioned by the Leabhar na g-Ceart 1 O'Donovan con- 
cludes that it belongs to a later period and was modeled 
on the exactions of the Norman invaders. 2 So that it 
would appear that the Ua Ceallaigh or O'Kelly family of 
Ui Maine continued owners of English slaves even after 
the twelfth century and the decree of the Synod of 
Armagh. 

The Synod of Armagh, after the appearance of the 
Norman and Angevin French in Ireland under Henry II, 
attributed this foreign intrusion to the sin of slave dealing 
and counseled that all the English slaves throughout the 
country the ownership of whom was claimed by the Nor- 
man French should be emancipated. This event occurred 
in the year 1172 and is noteworthy as one of the first 
recorded emancipations of slaves in modern history. At 
this synod "the poets and bishops of Ireland were gath- 
ered to Armagh, and there they considered what was 
the cause of the plague of outlanders upon them." This 
referred to the interference of the Norman French two 
years before. "This they all understood, that it was 
because of buying children from the English, for the 
English, when they were in want of wealth, used to sell 
their children to the Irish (as slaves) . And God does not 
inflict more punishment on him who sells his children 
than on him who buys them. They therefore counseled 
that all the English they held in bondage should be let 
go free. And thus it was done." 3 

The evidence is that English slaves in Ireland were 
humanely treated. The number of English slaves in 

1 Page 115. 

2 Preface, Leabar na g-Ceart, XVIII. 

3 Irish Abridgment of Expugnatio Hibernica, ed., Stokes. See English 
Hist. Review, 1905, p. 87; Mrs. Green, Making of Ireland and Its Undoing, 
p. 249. 

310 



Appendices 

Ireland appears to have been one of the reproaches leveled 
against Ireland by Henry II and other Normans, but 
consider how the French themselves handled the English 
in England. "They greatly opprest the wretched peo- 
ple by making them work at these castles and when the 
castles were finished they filled them with devils and 
evil men. Then they took those whom they suspected to 
have any goods, by night and by day, seizing both men 
and women, and they put them in prison for their gold 
and silver, and tortured them with pains unspeakable, 
for never were any martyrs tormented as these were. They 
hung some up by their feet and smoked them with foul 
smoke; some by their thumbs, or by the head, and they 
hung burning things on their feet. They put a knotted 
string about their heads and twisted it till it went into the 
brain. They put them into dungeons wherein were adders 
and snakes and toads, and thus wore them out. Some 
they put into a crucet-house, that is, into a chest that was 
short and narrow and not deep, and they put sharp stones 
in it and crushed the man therein so that they broke all his 
limbs." And so on. 1 This was in the twelfth century. 
In the sixteenth century the average Englishman was no 
better off from the point of view of the punishments which 
might be inflicted upon him. He was a serf in the 
twelfth century; he continued to be a slave in the sixteenth. 
The chief difference was that while he was the slave of 
his immediate master in the twelfth century, both he and 
his master were in the sixteenth century also slaves of the 
king. Under the laws of Henry VIII for small offenses 
and often for no offense at all the Englishman was liable 
to be stript naked and brutally whipt, on all fours or 
tied to the end of a cart in the public market place. The 

i Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, anno 1137. 

3" 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

English "gentleman of leisure" likes to think he is repre- 
sentative of a very ancient type, but it is certain that his 
type was rare in the time of Henry VIII. Idleness — 
at least other people's — was in the view of Henry the 
"mother and root of all vices." It was punished by 
repeated public whippings "till the body be bloody by 
reason of such whipping." 1 A second offense was pun- 
ished by further whipping, exposure in the pillory, and 
the cutting-off of the ears, and the third offense was fol- 
lowed by "pains and execution of death as a felon and as 
an enemy of the commonwealth." 2 Social position 
counted for nothing. The scholars of the universities of 
Oxford and Cambridge, proctors, pardoners, prophesiers, 
leisured travelers, tourists, pedlers, lecturers, professors 
in "physick, physnamye, and palmistry, or other crafty 
science," and sturdy vagabonds, all looked alike to Henry, 
whose sovereign cure for every shortcoming and not a 
few virtues was the bathing of the body in blood with 
the universal cat-o'-nine tails. 3 The Englishman could not 
leave his job, he could not change from one job to another, 
he could not go from one place to another, he could not 
take a holiday, he could not have an independent opinion 
of his own about anything, without facing the prospect 
of a public flogging or the pillory, of losing his ears, or 
of death or torture in some horrible form. Now the old 

lActs of Henry VIII, 12th of the 22nd; Amended Statute, 27 Henry VIII, 
cap. 25. By an Act of 1547 idle Englishmen were also adjudged to honest 
neighbors as "slaves" and had to wear rings of iron on their arms, necks or 
legs. 

2 For the offense of idleness or unemployment, often repeated, repeated 
whippings were provided by the earlier act. Apparently to be stript naked 
and publicly whipt was regarded as less disagreeable than work by large 
classes of Englishmen. Henry, accordingly, with characteristic savagery, 
five years later made another law establishing capital punishment for the 
third offense. 

3 Nearly all these Acts were Henry's own. Parliament existed merely to 
obey, and when the king's name was mentioned in debate its members 
groveled in the direction of his empty chair, in token of their complete sub- 
mission. 

312 



Appendices 

Irish laws 1 are singularly free from these brutalizing pun- 
ishments, degrading man below the level of brute beasts, 
and are indeed characterized by a humaneness such as 
that to which modern sentiment tends. It is not too much 
to say that the English slave under his highly civilized 
Irish masters was better off under certain circumstances 
than the average Englishman of the twelfth or sixteenth 
century, when not even his thoughts were his own and 
when mutilation and death under the law lurked round 
every corner. 

i They may be consulted in "Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland," 
Dublin, 1865-1891, 6 vols. See also Joyce's "Social History," I, pp. 198-216 
(Administration of Justice). 



313 



APPENDIX B 
THE IRISH PROVINCE OF SCOTLAND 

IN the effort to propagate the notion that the Gael 
formed but a small minority of the population of 
Scotland and that the great majority are of Teutonic 
descent, a theory has been built up to the effect that, 
despite the fact that Scotland was at one time peopled 
by an Irish-speaking people sprung in the main from 
the Irish settlers in the country, that condition of things 
endured only during the earlier centuries of Scottish his- 
tory, at the end of which period these Celts or Gaels or 
Irish were expelled from what is now called the "low- 
lands" and confined to what is now called the "highlands" 
where they live at this day. The supposed expulsion of 
the Gael is generally ascribed to some undefined period 
between the opening of the eleventh and the close of the 
twelfth century, following the French conquest of 
England, which is credited with sending many English 
over the Scottish border. This theory, tho without a leg 
to stand upon, is the theory that holds the ground in many 
minds to-day. It has been shown to be utterly opposed 
to all the facts of history, and has time out of mind been 
decently buried, only to be resurrected to walk the earth 
again. More than a century ago Chalmers showed its 
absurdity in his well known work, "Caledonia." Sixty 
years ago E. W. Robertson, in his appendix to "Scotland 
under her Early Kings," demolished the Theory of Dis- 
placement, as he termed it. Still more recently Pro- 
fessor Rait has pointed out that the theory is quite unten- 
able. But it is a theory useful for political purposes in 

314 



Appendices 

Great Britain and as such has shown itself possest of 
more than the proverbial nine lives. 

All available evidence is opposed to any notion that 
Scotland, in the highlands or in the lowlands, has ever 
been peopled by other than Irish Gaels, since they first 
gave the name to the country. Thus long after the period 
when the Celt is supposed in the imagination of some 
historians to have been prest back by an English or 
Teuton population from the lowlands we find the Irish 
language spoken all over the country as far as the south 
and east, we find men with Irish names figuring plenti- 
fully in legal documents, we find the survival of Irish 
laws and customs and Irish officialdom both in the Church! 
and in the State, and we find Irish place-names outnum- 
bering other place-names even to the English border. 

The Irish Tongue in Scotland. — Irish remained the 
literary language of Scotland till after the middle of the 
eighteenth century. It remained the spoken language of 
Scotland till the sixteenth century. "Most of us spoke 
Irish a short time ago," says John Mair, or Major, who 
wrote a history during the reign of James IV of Scotland, 
who died in 15 13. "Those who live on the borders of 
England," says his contemporary, Hector Boece, "have 
forsaken our own tongue (Irish) and learned English, 
being driven thereto by wars and commerce. But the 
Highlanders remain just as they were in the time of Mal- 
colm Canmore, in whose days we began to adopt English 
manners." Sir Thomas Craig, writing in the reign of 
James VI (1625), says: "I myself remember the time 
when the inhabitants of the shires of Stirling and Dum- 
barton spoke pure Gaelic." 1 Stirling and Dumbarton 
are in what has come to be called the "lowlands" of Scot- 
land. 

iDe Unione Regnorum Britanniae, Scott. Hist. Soo., trs. Terry, pp. 418-9. 

315 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

Both Wallace (c. 1270-1305) and Bruce (1274-1329) 
are credited with having been fluent Gaelic speakers. In 
Ayrshire and Galloway, as Professor Mackinnon notes, 
Gaelic was spoken for centuries after Wallace's time, and 
Wallace himself was also in the habit of wearing Gaelic 
dress. In 1434 an Englishman of the name of Hendry 
visited the lowlands of Moray and Aberdeen and found 
the Irish language still commonly spoken there. About 
1505 Dunbar wrote his Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie. 
Walter Kennedy was the third son of the first Lord Ken- 
nedy, heritable bailie of Carrick. He was well acquainted 
with Irish, then common in Carrick, on which account 
Dunbar abuses him as an "Irische bryour baird" and an 
"Ersch katherane with thy polk breik and rilling," from 
which it may be inferred Kennedy wore Irish dress. To 
Dunbar's abuse of the Irish language, Kennedy replies 
with dignity and good sense: 

"Bot it suld be all trew Scottis mennis lede (i. e., speech) ; 

It was the gud langage of this land, 

And Scota it causit to multiply and sprede." 1 

Between the years 1563 and 1566 an English official 
drew up a military report on the districts of Cunning- 
ham, Kyle, and Carrick, with reference to the possibility 
of their occupation by an invading English army. He 
described Carrick as follows: "Inhabited by therle of 
Cassils and his frendes, a barrant cuntree but for bestiall; 
the people for the moste part speketht erishe." 2 In another 
description of Carrick and other parts of Scotland in 
11577 it was remarked that "the people's speech is min- 
gled with the English and Irish, not far from Carrick- 
fergus." 3 The same writer noted that the people of the 

1 Dunbar's Poems, ii, 11-29. 

2 Archaeological and Historical Collections of Ayr and Wigton, IV, 17. 

3 Calendar of Scottish Papers, V, 257. 

3l6 



Appendices 

Earl of Atholl and of "Camel," Earl of Argyle, also 
spoke Irish. In 1618, John Taylor, the "Water Poet," 
visited Scotland, and afterwards recorded his impressions 
in the Pennyles Pilgrimage. He says : "I did go through 
a country called Glaneske. At night I came to a lodging 
house in the Lard of Eggels Land (i. e., Edzell) where 
I lay at an Irish house, the folkes not being able to speak 
scarce any English." (P. 134, edition of 1630.) Later 
he refers to the "Highlandmen, who for the most part 
speak nothing but Irish." According to the Rev. James 
Fraser, the minister of Wardlaw, Gaelic was held "in 
esteem" at the court of Charles II. Comparing that 
court with Malcolm Canmore's, he says: "Formerly 
Latin and Irish was the language spoken at our Scots 
court, now a nursery of all languages, arts and sciences 
. . . . and yet the Irish still in esteem at court. Franciscus 
Fraiser was master of the languages at the court; the 
Scots who spoke only Irish called him Frishalach 
Francach." 1 

In the eighteenth century Irish was the language of 
the people in the Ochil hills. Again about 1792 the 
minister of Drom wrote as follows in the Old Statistical 
Account: "Gaelic .... is said to have been the common 
language not only here . . . but even through the whole 
country of Fife not above two or three generations back." 
About 1730, Edward Burt, wrote: "The Irish tongue 
was, I may say, lately almost universal even in many parts 
of the Lowlands, and I have heard it from several in 
Edinburgh that before the Union it was the language of 
the shire of Fife — and as a proof they told me, after 
that event (the Union) it become one condition of an 
indenture when a youth of either sex was to be bound on 

1 Wardlaw MS., p. 38. 

317 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

the Edinburgh side of the water, that the apprentice 
should be taught the English tongue." 1 

Thus Irish survived as a spoken tongue in southern Scot- 
land, particularly in Galloway and Carrick, after the mid- 
dle of the eighteenth century. It is a fact of great 
significance that the early Scottish writers, whether they 
knew Gaelic or not, invariably referred to that tongue 
as the "Scottish" and to the Teutonic dialect of Lothian 
as English. For example an early record of benefactions 
to Loch Leven was abridged from an older book written 
in Gaelic, which is referred to as the idiom of the Scots 
(vetus volumen antiquo Scotorum idiomate conscrip- 
tum) . 2 A charter of William the Lion mentions a certain 
will, "qui Scottice tobari nuncupatur," an evident refer- 
ence to the Irish word tobar. In 1221 certain land is 
mentioned, "que Scotice dicitur Abthan." 3 Fordun in 
his description of Alexander Ill's coronation refers to 
Irish as the Scottish language, and elsewhere in his his- 
tory (Book II, chap. 9) he alludes to the two languages 
spoken in Scotland, the Scottish and the Teutonic as he 
termed them (Scotica et Theuthonica) , that is Irish and 
English. A mid- thirteenth century perambulation of the 
bounds of Kingoldrum refers to the two languages as 
Scottish and English, for it describes two places, 
"Hachethunethouer quod Anglice dicitur Midefeld" and 
also "Marresiam quamdam quae Scotice dicitur Moyne- 
buch." 4 Barbour, Wyntoun, Blind Harry and Dunbar 
all referred to the language which they spoke and wrote 
as "Inglis," or "Inglisch," etc. Wyntoun, altho he wrote 

1 Letters, I, 158-9, 5th edition. 

2 Registrum Prioratus S. Andreae, p. 113. 

3 Charters of Inchaffray Abbey, p. 44. 

4 Registrum Vetus de Aberbrothoc, p. 228. 

318 



Appendices 



»i 



in English, yet referred to Gaelic as "Scote" or "Scottis. 
iWe find the General Assembly of the Church of Scot- 
land in 1570 referring to Gaelic as the Scottish language. 
The Assembly was informed that a certain Donald 
Munro, the commissioner of Ross, had but an imperfect 
acquaintance with his own language. Accordingly the 
Assembly commanded that assistance should be given him, 
because he was not "prompt in the Scottish tongue." 
Much later occasional reference is made to Gaelic as the 
Scottish language. Thus James MacPherson, of pseudo- 
Ossianic fame, writing in 1773 a dissertation to his poems, 
says : "A Scotchman tolerably conversant in his own lan- 
guage, understands Irish composition." 

Gavin Douglas was the first native Scottish writer to 
refer to the Teutonic speech of Lothian and Northum- 
berland as "Scottish." In 1513 in the prolog to his Aeneis 
he wrote: "This buik I dedicate writing in the lan- 
guage of Scottis natioun." Before the close of the six- 
teenth century this use of the word "Scottish" became 
fairly general, owing, it would appear, to the national sus- 
ceptibilities of the English-speaking Scots, who not know- 
ing the old language of Scotland sought to save their 
faces by a little word jugglery. Dunbar even went so far 
as to use the phrase, "oure Inglische." 2 

Irish continued the classic and literary tongue in Scot- 
land, the peasantry using a colloquial dialect, known to 
speakers of English as Earse (Irish), a broad-Scots term 
which is translated into proper English now as Scotch- 
Gaelic. This provincial dialect was never written or 
printed until Mr. MacFarlane, minister of Killinvir, in 
Argyleshire, published in 1754 a Scotch-Gaelic transla- 
tion of "Baxter's Call to the Unconverted." This printed 



1 Orygynale Cronykil, II, 112t-3. 
SGoldyn Targe, line 259. 



319 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

Scotch-Gaelic is in the main Irish written phonetically 
according to the rules of English orthography. So Mr. 
MacFarlane of Killinvir may be regarded as the some- 
what recent Homer or Andronicus of Scotch-Gaelic 
literature. 

Dr. Johnson's dictum that "there are not in the lan- 
guage five hundred lines that can be proved to be a hun- 
dred years old" was strictly true as applied to Scotch- 
Gaelic. Scotch-Gaelic in his day had no more literary 
value than the Yorks or Northumbrian dialect of English. 
The vast and valuable literature of the Gaels both of 
Ireland and Scotland was enshrined in the classical Irish 
tongue. 

Hume says that the name of Earse, or Irish, given by 
the low country Scots to the language of the Scottish 
Highlanders, is a certain proof of the traditional opinion, 
delivered from father to son, that the latter people came 
originally from Ireland. Bedell's Irish version of the 
Scriptures was circulated in Scotland with a glossary from 
1690 to 1767, and Bishop Carswell's version of Knox's 
Prayer-book (1567) is pure Irish. 

French Speech and Influence.— There are those 
among the historians of Scotland who profess to note 
the birth of English influence in that land following the 
marriage of Malcolm Canmore (1057-93) with Margaret, 
the expelled Anglo-Saxon princess. In this case the eyes 
see what they want to see. Such English influence as the 
welcome given to Margaret precipitated was a tenuous 
influence and it died a speedy death. In truth English 
influence at that time was a thing that was almost non- 
existent. England as a nation had been almost blotted 
out by the Danes. Danes and English went down in com- 
mon ruin under the French heel. In the centuries that 

320 



Appendices 

followed the influence of Anglo-Saxon civilization, if 
such a civilization may be said to have existed, would 
find its fittest comparison with the influence of negro 
civilization under the slave-owners of the southern parts 
of the United States. It is absolutely no exaggeration to 
say that the English people living in England under 
French rule occupied a lower status during the eleventh, 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, than the negro slave 
population in the southern states of America occupied 
during the seventeenth and eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 
turies. 

As Macaulay puts it : "So strong an association is estab- 
lished in most minds between the greatness of a sovereign 
and the greatness of the -nation which 'he rules, that 
almost every historian of England has expatiated with a 
sentiment of exultation on the power and splendor of her 
foreign masters (the French kings of England) and has 
lamented the decay of that power and splendor as a 
calamity to our country. This is, in truth, as absurd as 
it would be in a Haytian negro of our time to dwell 
with national pride on the greatness of Lewis the Four- 
teenth, and to speak of Blenheim and Ramilies with 
patriotic regret and shame. The Conqueror and his 
descendants to the fourth generation were not English- 
men ; most of them were born in France ; they spent the 
greater part of their lives in France ; their ordinary speech 
was French; almost every high place in their gift was 
filled by a Frenchman ; every acquisition which they made 
on the Continent estranged them more and more from 
the population of our island. One of the ablest among 
them indeed attempted to win the hearts of his English 
subjects by espousing an English princess. But by many 
of his barons this marriage was regarded as a marriage 

22 321 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

between a white planter and a quadroon girl would now 
be regarded in Virginia." 1 

During almost the two centuries which followed the 
Conqueror, there is very little that can be called English 
history. Those centuries are almost as much a blank 
as the two centuries following the arrival of the Saxons 
in England. History in England in that period was sim- 
ply the history of the French conquerors. 

French, not English, moreover, was the language to 
which Irish first gave place in the Scottish court. 
Most of the Gaelic nobility were probably bilingual, 
understanding, if not speaking, French, as well as their 
ancestral Gaelic. French was in use in David's court 
(1124-53) as it certainly was also in that of Alexander 
III (1249-86). An English chronicler, Walter of Coven- 
try, referring to the events of the year 121 2, says that the 
more recent kings of Scotland, i. e., William and his 
immediate predecessors, profess to be Frenchmen in race, 
manners, language, and culture, and that they admit only 
Frenchmen to their friendship and service. 2 At a later 
period French died out as the language of the court, being 
replaced by the speech of the Lothians. 

There is no record of English writing in Scotland before 
John Barbour, who died in 1395, and Andrew Wyntoun, 
who died after 1420, wrote their compositions. Since 
then English has gradually displaced Gaelic, tho even 
to-day the old Irish tongue is in full vigor over a large 
part of Scotland. Nor is there the slightest evidence that 
the defeated English entered Scotland at this time in any 
considerable numbers. Such English as lived in the coun- 
try lived there merely as hinds and slaves, as Symeon of 
Durham testifies, and being absolutely ignorant and unlet- 



1 History of England, I, 15. 
2Memoriale, II, 206. 



322 



Appendices 

tered they could have no influence whatever. "Norman" 
knights did later arrive, and these occupied positions 
of influence, acquired land, and even ascended the 
throne of Scotland. But these "Normans" did not speak 
English. Like their brethren in England they spoke 
French and they wrote both French and Latin, and in 
the Scottish documents of the period they are called. 
Frenchmen or Francii. They married into the families 
of equal status of the Irish Scots of Scotland just as 
they married into the families of the Irish Scots of 
Ireland. In Scotland as in Ireland they became ipsts 
Hibernis Hiberniores. They dropt French and learned 
to speak Irish in Scotland just as they dropped French 
and learned to speak Irish in Ireland. The prestige and 
influence of Irish civilization, which conquered and 
absorbed the Danes, who had defeated and enslaved the 
English, likewise conquered and absorbed the more pow- 
erful Normans in Scotland as in Ireland. Till that period 
Irish civilization and the Irish language had been a grow- 
ing and prevailing civilization and language both in 
Ireland and Scotland, while English had been stagnant 
and receding. 

Irish Names and Surnames in Scotland.— The evi- 
dence provided by the survival of the Irish language in 
Scotland even in the South is supplemented by the testi- 
mony supplied by Irish names which have outlived the 
language in the same region. Thus Malcolm IV 
(1153-65) and William the Lion (1165-1214) both 
addrest charters to the inhabitants of the lowland diocese 
of Glasgow concerning the payment of tithes. These 
charters make mention not only of French and English, 
but also of Scots, Galwegians and Strathclyde British 
(Scoti, Galwejenses et Walenses). We have an even later 

323 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

reference to the Strathclyde British, for Edward I, the 
English king, attempted to abolish the laws of the Brets 
and Scots. Again in 1263 an inquisition was held con- 
cerning the lands of Stephen Blantyre in Renfrewshire. 
The jurors who decided that his son Patrick was the heir 
must have been the social equals of the claimant. They 
all bear Irish names like Patrick de Blantyre himself: 
Gille Michel Mac Edolf, Malcolmus filius Galle, Done- 
canus Mac Edolf, Anegous de Auchenros, Dougal 
Mac Malcolm, Gillemor Mac Mohan, Patricius clericus, 
Patricius Pylche, Johannes Mac Galle, Gillecrist 
Mac Kessan, Dogal Mac Houtre. 1 Andrew Lang, who 
in his history shows the habitual itch of the lowland Scot 
to make himself out an Englishman, has this to say con- 
cerning the people of Renfrew: "Where Anglo-Nor- 
mans obtained lands in Moray, or Renfrewshire, there 
seems to have been no displacement of the population; 
tho a Fitz-Alan was dominant in Renfrewshire the 'good- 
men,' or gentry, still bore Gaelic names, till territorial 
names — 'of this or that place — came into use." 

Similarly an inquisition was held in 1260 at Girvan. 
The jury was formed of three knights with territorial 
surnames and nine others, all bearing Irish names. 2 Mr. 
Bain also printed lists of Galwegian prisoners and others 
concerned in the War of Independence. 3 Nearly all the 
names are Irish. Lists of Dumfries names, belonging to 
people living close to the English border, have been 
printed in the Register of the Privy Council, and many 
of them are obviously Irish. 4 

The lists of names of those who were appointed to 
perambulate boundaries also demonstrate that the popur 

lActs Pari. Scot, I, 92. 

2 Bain's Calendar of Documents, I, 553. 

3 Ibid., II, 253, 301. 

4 Vols. IV, VI, etc. 

324 



Appendices 

lation of the lowlands continued as Irish or Celtic or 
Gaelic or Scottish — whatever the term preferred — as it 
had ever been. Twelve of the names in a perambulation, 
c. 1200, of the lands of Stobo in Peebleshire, are Irish, 
such as Gylmihhel, Gillamor, and Gylcolm. Again in 
1246 the following persons conducted an inquiry into 
the marches of Westere Fedale, apparently near Auch- 
terarder: Patrick Ker, Simon of Fedale, Gillemury son 
of sai.d Simon; Simon Derech, Gillebride, Gillefalyn, 
son of said Gillebride, Gillecrist Mac Hatheny, Gille 
crist Mac Moreherthach, Gill Ethueny, Gillecostentyn. 1 
In the year 12 19 a perambulation was made between cer- 
tain lands of the monastery of Aberbrothoc (Arbroath) . 
The perambulators all bore Irish names, while several 
bearing French or Norman names were present, showing 
that the members of both the Gaelic and the Franco-Nor- 
man aristocracy met on equal terms. The evidence derived 
from royal charters show an equal predominance of Irish 
names long after the Teuton was supposed to have driven 
the Gael into the highlands. So far from there having 
been any expulsion of the Celt from the lowlands at the 
period indicated the only expulsions of which we have 
authentic record were of foreign intruders at court and 
elsewhere, both English and Norman. 

Thus English courtiers were expelled from Scotland on 
two occasions shortly after the death of Margaret, two 
English chroniclers, Symeon of Durham, and the writer 
of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, even going so far as to 
state that all the English were driven out of Scotland. 
[William of Newburgh relates that after the capture of 
William the Lion in 1174, the Scots fell upon those 
English burghers who were in the Scottish army, that 

iChartulary of Lindores, p. 26. 

325 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

some of these burghers were killed, and that the rest fled 
to the royal castles. 1 This points to the numerical infe- 
riority of the English element. One of the consequences 
of the battle of Carham (1018) was the reintroduction of 
Irish speech and Irish rule into Lothian. Indeed Irish 
even spread into the county of Northumberland. More- 
over the lists of burgal names illustrate a movement of the 
Gaelic country population into towns like Aberdeen, 
which admittedly had a large foreign element. This 
movement is an ever persistent phenomenon, as marked 
to-day as it was in those days. 

The lowland personal names of even the present day 
are predominantly Irish, not English. The late Sheriff 
Ferguson of Kinmundy, in commenting on the Registrar- 
General's report in 1864, pointed out that one half of 
the fifty commonest Scottish surnames were either recog- 
nized clan names, or else were names the form of which 
indicated their Celtic origin. The remaining half included 
six formed by the addition of "son" and several, such as 
Smith, which mightpossibly be translations from the Gaelic. 
Common lowland names are Bain, Dow, Ferguson, Glass, 
Allison, Anderson, Smith, Gow, Grierson, Kennedy, Kerr, 
Orr, Scott, and Wallace — nearly all these being the altered 
forms of Irish originals. Concerning the penultimate 
name, Robertson remarks that the "first ancestor must 
have stood out among the Saxons of the Lothians as 
Scotus, the Gael." Allison and Ellison were Mac Alis- 
tair; Smith was MacGowan; Ferguson was Mac Fergus; 
Anderson, MacAndrai; and so on. 

Other common lowland names, outwardly English, such 
as Black and Whyte, are in most cases merely translations 
of the corresponding adjectives in Irish speech — names 
such as Domhnull Dubh for example. 

1 Chronicles of Stephen, etc., I, 186. 

326 



Appendices 

Even surnames that cannot be shown to have any but 
an English origin are no proof of English ancestry. They 
merely show that the name was established after the 
English language had displaced the Irish language in that 
part of Scotland in which the name originated. 

Nothing is more certain than that the lowlands of Scot- 
land, whatever the change in speech and habit that later 
came, remained in population as permanently Irish or Gae- 
lic or Scot or Celtic — whatever the term preferred — as the 
highland portion of the country. In truth as time passed the 
northern parts of England, such as Cumbria and Northum- 
bria, acquired a considerable infusion of Gaelic blood as 
well, for the path of emigration has always been in a 
southerly direction, and the family names prevalent in the 
northern parts of England are largely Gaelic to-day. But 
in course of time English speech spread slowly northward 
and we are able to point almost to the very earliest cir- 
cumstances that induced a population, Gaelic injhe mass, 
gradually to submit to processes that were eventually to 
wean them from allegiance to their ancient motherland. 
Thus Grant Allen observes, speaking of Archbishop 
Dunstan : 

"One act of Dunstan's policy, however, had far-reach- 
ing results of a kind which he himself could never have 
anticipated. He handed over all Northumbria beyond 
the Tweed — the region now known as the Lothians — as 
a fief to Kenneth, king of the Scots. This accession of 
territory wholly changed the character of the Scottish 
kingdom and largely promoted the Teutonization of the 
Celtic north. The Scottish princes took up their residence 
in the English (sic) town of Edinburgh and learned to 
speak the English language as their mother tongue." 1 

1 Anglo-Saxon Britain, p. 147. 

327 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

The same writer goes on to remind us how Eadmund 
had already ceded Strathclyde, or Cumberland, to Mal- 
colm so that the Scottish kings ruled over all Scotland, 
except the Scandinavian jarldoms of Caithness, Suther- 
land, and the Isles, and how Fife also was Anglicized as 
well as the whole region south of the Highland line. 
"Thus a new and powerful kingdom," he continues, "arose 
in the North and at the same time the cession of an English 
district to the Scottish kings had the curious result of 
thoroughly Anglicizing two large and important Celtic 
regions, which had hitherto resisted every effort of the 
Northumbrian or West Saxon overlords." Grant Allen 
is here on the right track, but he exaggerates. The 
Anglicization of which he speaks was a much slower 
process than he supposes. The Anglicization described 
took place very much later than the period he assigns to 
it, and it was preceded by a Gallicization. Gaelic was 
spoken in Fife in the seventeenth century, and Gaelic was 
spoken in the Scottish parliament in the days of Bruce, 
and long after. But he is correct in so far as he indicates 
that the Anglicization of Scotland has come about not 
through English immigration but by the discarding on the 
part of the Gaels of Scotland of the ancient Irish tongue 
inherited from their ancestors. 

Even in the four counties of Lothian, often confounded 
by non-Scotch people with the so-called "Lowlands," the 
population was mixed. The passages in Bede, which 
seem to refer to Anglian colonization immediately south 
of the Forth, can only have been based on temporary over- 
lordship. The seaboard from the southern wall to the 
Lammermuir Hills fell into the uncertain possession of 
the Angles. But the tract, looking seaward from that 
range to where the Avon empties itself into the Forth or 

328 



Appendices 

thereabouts, and commonly known as the Lothians, was 
occupied by a considerable mixture of races, as may be 
gathered from the place-names there. 1 The district north 
of the Lammermoors forming the peninsula over against 
what is now the county of Fife would thus seem to have 
been Celtic. 

The real boundaries of the English colony in Scotland 
are indicated by Symeon of Durham in his description of 
the boundaries of the ancient diocese of Lindisfarne, a 
diocese of which the province of Lothian formed the 
northern part. Symeon says that the boundaries of the 
northern part of the diocese of Lindisfarne were marked 
by the (White) Adder, the Leader and the Esk. He 
also mentions that Melrose, Jedburgh, Yetholm, and other 
places east of Roxburghshire pertained to the diocese of 
Lindisfarne. 2 Thus the Esk in Dumfriesshire near the 
English border marked the real northern limit of the 
English province. Beyond that river the Angles had only 
isolated settlements, such as Abercorn. 

Irish Place-Names. — The assertions as to English 
settlement and suzerainty between the Tweed and the 
Forth are based largely on the false etymology of the name 
Edinburgh, meaning the "forehead" or "brow" (aodann) 
of a "hill" (bruch), Aodann-bruch. Most English his- 
torians, being ignorant of the Irish language, have been 
unaware of this. One after the other they have echoed the 
mistaken notion that the city derived its name from Edwin, 
king of Northumbria, and they have proceeded to magnify 
his character and exploits in grandiose words on account 
of it. Thus Green says concerning Edwin : "Northward 
his frontier reached the Forth and was guarded by a city 
which bore his name, Edinburgh, Eadwine's burgh, the 

iRhys, Early Britain. 
aHistoria, I. 197-9; II, 101. 

329 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

city of Eadwine." Plausibility is given to the derivation 
by the error of a copyist or interpolator of Symeon of 
Durham, but Aodann, or edin, occurs as a prefix in more 
than a hundred places in Ireland and Scotland and there 
is no doubt of the Irish character of the name. Similarly 
Auld Reekie is derived from the Irish alt (high place) 
ruighe (slope) ; Arthur's Seat, from the Irish ard-thir 
suidhe, a place on high ground, and so on. 1 

Irish place-names in Scotland outnumber all others by 
ten to one, while such of them as are or appear to be 
English have in cases like those just mentioned been trans- 
lated or corrupted from their Irish form. Thus Edderon, 
near Tain, is Eadar duin, "the town between the hillocks" ; 
Falkirk is a translation of Eaglais breac, "the speckled 
church" (Varia Capella) ; Earlston is Ercheldon or 
Ercildun; Almond is a corruption of Amhuinn, a river; 
and Glen Howl is Gleann-a-ghabail, "the glen of the 
fork." 2 In a similar way Strathclyde has become Clydes- 
dale; Strathnith has become Nithsdale; Strathannan has 
become Annansdale; and so on. In some cases the Irish 
prefix "kil-" has been supplanted by the Saxon "kirk-," as 
Kirkpatrick for Kilpatrick. But "Kil-" is still the more 
common prefix, as Kilmarnock, signifying the "chapel 
of Marnock," a famous Irish saint. In Galloway alone, 
almost the most southerly part of Scotland, Sir Herbert 
Maxwell found 220 "Knocks" (Irish Cnoc, "a Hill"). 3 
There are Irish place-names even in Berwickshire on the 
English border and they increase as we go north and west 
in the rest of the Lothians. The subject of place-names 
however needs no laboring. A glance at any large scale- 

iSee Milne, Gaelic Place-Names in the Lothians; Joyce, Irish Names of 
Places. 

2 Johnston, Place-Names in Scotland, p. XVII. 

3 Studies in the Topography of Galloway, 1885. 

330 



Appendices 

map of Ireland and Scotland even by a person who knows 
next to nothing of the Irish tongue is sufficient to make it 
clear that the vast majority of place-names in the two 
countries have a common and an Irish origin. 

Highlanders and Lowlanders Both Gaels. — The 
supposed racial differences between "highlanders" and 
"lowlanders" moreover find no support in the pages of 
early Irish, Scottish, and English historians. These last 
had not then discovered that the two-nation theory would 
be a valuable political asset to England in its dealing with 
its northern neighbor. John of Fordun remarks that the 
speakers of the Scottish language inhabit the hill country 
and the outer isles and that the speakers of the Teutonic 
language dwell in the maritime regions and the plains. 1 
Gaelic continued to exist in the south of Scotland long 
after Fordun's time, even in some of the more low-lying 
districts. He says the Scottish-speaking hillmen are hos- 
tile to the English, and even to their own nation, on 
account of the difference of speech. Outside of Lothian 
he does not mention the presence of English settlers. 
Instead he reiterates a remark of Isidore's to the effect 
that the Scottish people resemble the Irish in all things, 
in language, manners and character. 

Hector Boece, writing a century later, also maintains 
a significant silence on the subject of the supposed Saxon 
descent of the lowlanders and the supposed expulsion of 
the Celt. He says instead that the Scots on the English 
border through much commercial intercourse and wars, 
had learned the Saxon speech, and had forsaken their own 
speech. (Saxonum linguam didicimus nostramque 
deseruimus.) The language was slightly pushed out, 
but not the men. Like Fordun, Boece adds that the people 

i Book II, Ch. 9. 

331 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

living on the higher ground still speak their own lan- 
guage. John Major, writing about 1520, says that one 
half of Scotland spoke Gaelic in his time and that many 
more did so a short time previously. 1 He adds that "we 
(i. e., the Scottish people) trace our descent from the 
Irish. This we learn from the English Bede. Their 
speech is another proof of this," and again, "I say then 
from whosoever the Irish traced their descent from the 
same source come the Scots tho at one remove, as with 
son and grandfather." 

In the same century Bishop Leslie wrote his De Gestis 
Scotorum, which Father Dalrymple translated into 
English in 1596. The latter says that the "mair politick 
Scottis," by which phrase he translates the bishop's poli- 
tiores Scoti, use the "Ingles toung," and that "the rest 
of the Scottis .... thay use thair aide Jrishe tongue." 
About 1630 James Howell wrote that "the ancient lan- 
guage of Scotland is Irish, which the mountaineers and 
divers of the plain retain to this day." 2 Irish annalists, 
moreover, nowhere mention any racial difference between 
lowland Scots on the one hand and highland Scots and 
the Irish themselves on the other. To them Scotland is 
simply a kindred province or kingdom, and the frequent 
use of the phrase "Eire agus Alba" shows their recogni- 
tion of the essential oneness of the people of both coun- 
tries. Thus Armagh in the twelfth century was the 
national university for Ireland and Scotland. The decree 
that every lector in every church had to take there a degree 
applied to both countries and in 11 69 the High King, 
Ruaidhri Ua Concobhair, gave the first annual grant to 
maintain a professor at Armagh "for all the Irish and 
the Scots." 

iHistorie of Scotland, I, 85, 86. 

2 Familiar Letters, Book II, Letter 55. 

332 



Appendices 

Even the phrases "highland" and "lowland" are 
unknown to the early writers. Gaelic knows nothing of 
these fictitious distinctions. Andrew of Wyntoun is the 
first writer to make mention of the former word. In his 
Orygynale Cronykil, written about 1420-4, he uses the 
phrase "Scottis hielande men." The word "lowland" does 
not make its appearance till another century had nearly 
passed away, when Dunbar employed it in his Flyting 
with Kennedie. Thus these terms, of which so much 
political use has since been made, are purely modern terms 
and the invention of English speakers. Philemon Hol- 
land, an Englishman, goes in 1610 a step further, when 
he says that "the Scots are divided into Hechtlandmen 
and Lawlandmen." 1 Tobias Smollett in 1771 was appar- 
ently the first writer to refer to lowland Scots as "Saxons" 
(Humphry Clinker), but Sir Walter Scott has also to be 
credited with the diffusion of the racial difference theory. 

The Scottish lexicographer 2 sums up some points cor- 
rectly when he says: "The difference between the Irish 
and the Scots is geographical only and not racial, as the 
records of both amply and abundantly prove. Both call 
themselves Gaidhail (Gael) in their own language, and 
fraternize instantly as soon as English, the language of 
disunion, is removed. Any difference between them is 
more imaginary than real and has been invented and 
assiduously accentuated for political reasons only, on the 
old and barbarous plan of 'divide and rule.' " 3 

1 Camden, Britannia, I, 155. 

2Dwelly, Faclair Gaidhlig (Gaelic Dictionary), Heme Bay, E. MaoDonald 
& Co., 1902, Vol. I, Roimh-Radh (Preface), IV. 

3 For much of the testimony and evidence contained in the above Appendix 
I am indebted to two articles by H. C. MacNeacail in the Scottish Review 
(Autumn, Winter, 1918), written for the purpose of showing that the 
inhabitants of Scotland were Celts and not English or Teuton. I had already 
arrived at the conclusions given above and had set forth the evidence before 
meeting with Mr. MacNeacail's articles. I found much that was new among 
his well-arranged testimony and have made use of it here, though my line 
of argument is somewhat different from his. 

333 



APPENDIX C 



THE HIGH MONARCHS OF IRELAND 

THE following is a list of the Ard Righs or High 
Kings of Ireland from the beginning of the Chris- 
tian era. The remarkable fact is to be noted that 
the descendants of King Niall I (379-405) occupied the 
throne of Ireland in unbroken succession till the usurpa- 
tion of King Brian (1002-14), a period of nearly six 
hundred years. This list is distinct from the dynasties 
in the subsidiary kingdoms, some of which endured to the 
seventeenth century: 



A. D. 

Conari I 1 

Lugaid I 65 

Conchubair I 73 

Crimthann I 74 

Cairbre I 90 

Feradach I 95 

Fiatach 117 

Fiacha I 119 

Elim 126 

Tuathal I 130 

Mai 160 

Fedlimidh 164 

Cathair 174 

Conn Cedcathach (of the 

Hundred Battles) 177 

Conari II 212 

Art 220 

Lugaid II 250 

Fergus I 253 

Cormac 254 

Eochaid I 277 

Cairbre II 279 

Fiacha II 297 

Colla 327 

Muiredach 331 



A. D. 

Caelbad 357 

Eochaid II 358 

Crimthann II 366 

Niall I (of the Nine 

Hostages) 379 

Dathi (Feradach II) 405 

Laighaire 428 

Olioll 463 

Lugaid III 483 

Muirchetach I 512 

Tuathal II 533 

Diarmuid I 544 

Domhnaill I joint " 
Fergus II kings 

Baitan I joint / t-65 

Eochaid III kings 

Ammire '568 

Baitan II 571 

Aedh I 572 

Aedh (Slaine) II joint / - Q o 
Colman kings J " " * *** 

Aedh III 603 

Maelcoba 611 

Suibne 614 

Domhnaill II 627 



565 



334 






Appendices 



A. D. 

Ceallach joint) 6 

Conaill kings ) 

Blathmac joint ) 5^5 

Diarmuid II kings j 

Sechnasach 664 

Cennf aelad 671 

Finachta 674 

Longsech 694 

Congal 704 

Fergal 711 

Fogartach 722 

Cioneth 724 

Flathbertach 727 

Aedh IV 734 

Domhnaill III 743 

Niallll 763 

Donnchad I 770 

Aedh V 797 

Conchubair II 819 

Niall III 853 

Mailsechlann I 846 

Aedh VI 863 



A. D. 

Flann 879 

Niall IV 916 

Donnchad II 919 

Congalach 944 

Domhnaill IV 956 

Mailsechlann II 980 

Brian (Boroimhe) 1002 

Mailsechlann II (again) . . 1014 

Donnchad III 1027 

Diarmuid III 1064 

Turlogh I 1072 

Muirchetach II 1086 

Domhnaill V 1086 

Turlogh II 1 136 

Muirchetach III 1156 

Ruadhri 1 161-1 198 

A succession of Irish provin- 
cial kings and princes, particu- 
larly among the O'Neills, laid 
claim to the throne of Ireland up 
to the seventeenth century. 



335 



APPENDIX D 
IRISH KINGS OF SCOTLAND 

THERE is a list of thirty-three Irish kings of the 
continually expanding kingdom of Dalriada in 
the west of Scotland beginning with the founda- 
tion of the Irish monarchy in Scotland by Fergus (c. 490- 
503) down to Alpin, the first Irish king of Scotland to be 
crowned at Scone. Beginning with Cainnech, or Ken- 
neth, the son of Alpin, the Irish kings of united Scotland 
are as follows: 



A. D. 

Cainnech 844 

Domhnaill 860 

Constantin 863 

Aedh 877 

Eochaid 878 

Domhnaill II 889 

Constantin II 900 

Maelcolm I 943 

Indulph 954 

Duff (Dubh) 962 

Cuilean 967 

Cainnech II 971 

Constantin III 995 

Cainnech III 997 



A. D. 

Maelcolm II 1005 

Duncan I 1034 

Macbeth 1040 

Maelcolm III 1057 

Domhnaill III 1093 

(Duncan II 1094) 

Edgar 1097 

Alexander I 1 106 

David I 1 124 

Maelcolm IV 1153 

William I 1165 

Alexander II 1214 

Alexander III 1249-1286 



33^ 



APPENDIX E 
SOME WORKS OF REFERENCE 

Migne: Patrologiae Cursus Completus; Series Latina; 217 Vols, 
including a large part of the poetic, epistolary, historical, phil- 
osophical and patristic Latin literature of the 1,000 years from 
Tertullian (d. 240) to Innocent III (d. 1216), Paris, 1844-55,; 
with 4 Vols, of Indices, 1862-4. 

Monumenta Germaniae Historica, folio series of Scriptores, etc., 
edited by Pertz and others (Hanover) 1826-91 ; continued in 
quarto series, Berlin, 1877- (in progress). 

"Rolls Series"; Rerum Brittanicarum medii Aevi Scriptores, or 
Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during 
the Middle Ages, published under the direction of the Master 
of the Rolls, 244 Vols., London, 1858-96. 



Academy, Royal Irish, Proceedings and Trans. 
Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists ("Acta SS"). 
Adamnan, Life of St. Columba (edited Reeves). 
Anecdota Oxoniensia, from MSS. in the Bodleian and other Ox- 
ford Libraries. 
Anglia Sacra, 2 Vols. 

Annals of the Four Masters, edited O'Donovan. 
Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, and other works. 
Brehon Laws. Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland, Dublin, 

1865-91, 6 Vols. 
Bury, J. B., Life of St. Patrick. 
Colgan: Acta Sanctorum. 
Gildas: De Excidio Brit. 
Giraldus Cambrensis: Opera (Rolls Series). 
Gougaud, Dom L. : Les Chretientes Celtiques. 
Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents. 
Healy, J. : Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum. 
Hyde, D. : Literary History of Ireland. 
Jonas, Vita S. Columbani. 

Jones, Vestiges of the Gael in Gwynedd (N. Wales). 
Joyce, P. W.: Social History of Ireland (2 Vols.). 
Leabhar na g-Ceart, or Book of Rights. 
Lanigan: Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. 
Lynch, Cambrensis Eversus. 

Montalembert, Les Moines d'Occident, Paris, 1863. 
Nennius, Historia Britonum. 
23 337 



Ireland and the Making of Britain 

O'Hanlon: Lives of the Irish Saints, Dublin, 1875 et se( l- 

Skene: Celtic Scotland. 

Schultze, W. : Die Bedeutung der Iroschottischen Monche, etc., 

(Centralblatt fur Bibliothekswesen, 1889). 
Stokes and Strachan: Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (2 Vols.). 
Tain bo Chuailnge ("The Tain"), trs. Hutton. 
Traube, L.: O Roma Nobilis (Abhandlungen d. K. Bayer. Akad. 

1891); Perrona Scottorum (Abhandlungen, 1900). 
Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Old Series, 9 Vols. (Articles by Wm. 

Reeves, F. Keller, and Wattenbach). 
Zimmer, The Irish Element in Mediaeval Culture (translation of 

article in Preuss. Jahrbucher, 1887). 



338 



INDEX 



Abban, work of, 253-255. 

Abba's Hill, 254. 

Aberbrothoc (Arbroath), monastery 
of, 325. 

Aberdeen, 316, 326. 

Abingdon, monastery of, 253-255. 

Acca's Cross, 282. 

Acha, 215. 

Acts Pari Scot., 324. 

Adamnan, life of Columcille, 21, 95, 
106, and note, 117, 119, 120-122, 
126-156; "De Locis Sanctis," 54; 
"Historia Hibernorum," 78; career 
of Adamnan, 149-155; "Lex Adam- 
nani," 152; "Vision of Adamnan," 
154; Adamnan and the English, 
200-202 and 215; relations with 
King Aldfrid, 214; Adamnan and 
Bede, 272. 

Adda, 225-226. 

Adrian at Canterbury, 264-268, 285- 
287. 

Adrian IV, Pope, 191. 

Aebba, 221. 

Aedh, 106, 138. 

^Edilhilda, 255. 

iEdwine, 222. 

Albert, 273. 

^ngus the Culdee, on foreigners in 
Ireland, 53; his Felire, 112. 

iEthelhun, 255. 

yEthelwald, 257. 

iEthelwine, work of, 255-256. 

^Ethelwulf, 274. 

Agilbert the Frank, educated in 
Ireland, 56, 229, 241, 243. 

Agricola, camp of, 103. 

Aidan, King, 20-21, 66, 135, 139; de- 
feats the English, 202. 

Aidan, Bishop, real apostle of En- 
gland, 195; among the English 
tribes, 201-202; influence against 
slavery, 210-211; school of 12 

339 



boys, 211; relations with Oswald, 
211-213; as statesman, 213; King 
Oswin's veneration for, 216-219; 
death of, 217-218; Bede's eulogy 
of, 218-219; foundations in En- 
gland, 219-224; date of death, 224; 
English churches dedicated to, 224; 
effects of his work, 231, 233, 243, 
245, 248, 271, 273, 286. 

Aileach, 158; king of, 308. 

Ailech of the Kings, 281. 

Airt, 91. 

Aix-la-Chapelle, Irish in, 11. 

Alba, explained, 46, 176. 

Albeus, 53. 

Albinus, 21. 

Albiones, 176. 

Alcuin, 3, 24, 55, 56, 75-76, 79, 96, 
123, 154, 221, 265, 272, 273, 279, 
285, 290. 

Aldfrid, king of Northumbria, 58, 
135, 151-1S2, 154, 214, 215, 228- 
229, 239, 272. 

Aldhelm, 44, 56, 58, 61, 80, 184, 197, 
250, 251, 252, 254; on English stu- 
dents in Ireland, 256-258; and 
Cellan, correspondence between, 
258-261 ; teachers of, 260, 265-266 ; 
letter of to Eahfrid, 267-268. 

Alduini, 255. 

Aldwulf, 223. 

Alemanni, impressed by Irish mis- 
sionaries, 95-96, 165. 

Alexander III, 115, 318; court of, 

2,22. 

Alfred, King, 95; Irish scholars and, 

274-276, 291-292. 
Alfred Jewell, 281. 
Algeis, 247. 
Alithir, Abbot, 139. 
Allen, Anglo-Saxon Britain, cited, 

277, 327-328. 



Index 



Alliaco, Cardinal, 191. 
Alphabet, Roman practice of teach- 
ing, 124. 
Altus, 148. 
Amalgaidh, 182, 
Amand, 16. 

Ambrose, known to Irish, 39, 48. 
Ammianus Marcellinus, quoted, 164- 

165. 
Ampney Crusis, 281. 
Amra Choluim Chilli, by Dalian For- 

gaill, 122. 
Ancient Laws and Institutes of 

Ireland, 313. 
Ancona, Pellegrinus in, 18. 
Andelys, 223. 
Andrew of Fiesole, 19. 
Anecdota Oxoniensia, Stokes, 53, 

124, 126, 136, 139, 140, 141, 158. 
Angles ea, 178. 
Anglesey, 170. 
Anglia Sacra, Vita. S. Dustani, by 

Osbern, quoted, 289. 
Anglia Sacra, 303, 305, 306, 309. 
Anglo-Jute-Saxon conquest of Brit- 
ain, 157-159- 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 95, 159, 202, 

178, 214, 275, 294, 311, 325. 
Anglo-Saxon civilization, mediocre 

imitation of Irish, 285-287. 
Anglo-Saxon Cottoniana, map of the 

world, 278. 
Anglo-Saxon students in Ireland, 55- 

57- 
Angus (Augustin), treatise by 659, 

18. 
Angus, son of Ere, 114. 
Anna, King, 246. 
Annales Cambriae, 178. 
Annals of the Four Masters, 43, 59, 

154, 163. 
Annals of Tighernach, 163, 272. 
Annals of Ulster, 78, 272. 
Annegray, 241. 
"Anonymous History of the Abbots," 

271. 
Anselm, 309. 
Apuleius known to Irish, 39. 



Arbogast, 57. 

Archpresbyter of the Gael, 116-118. 

Archceological and Historical Collec- 
tions of Ayr and Wigton, 316. 

Archceological lournal, 81. 

Architecture, schools of, in Ireland, 
44- 

Arculf, 54, 154. 

Ardagh Chalice, 12, 74. 

Ardrigh or High King, 115, 334. 

Argyleshire, 114. 

Aristotle, first translated by an 
Irishman from the Arabic into 
Latin, 25. 

Aristotle, Irish familiar with, 38-39. 

Aries, 199. 

Armagh, founded before Bagdad, 3 ; 
importance of, 32-33; number of 
students in, 49; "metropolis of 
civilization," 52; schools and schol- 
ars, 55, 60, 112; university for 
Ireland and Scotland, 332; Synod 
at, decrees emancipation of English 
slaves, 310. 

Armorica, 159. 

Art, father of King Cormac, 163. 

Art Mac Mur rough, King of Lein- 
ster, 298. 

Artchorp, 174. 

Artuil, letter of, to Aldhelm, 261. 

Asser, 276, 291. 

Asterius, Bishop, 242. 

Astronomy, taught by Irish, 21. 

At the Wall, 226. 

Athanasius, known to Irish, 39. 

Attacotti, 165. 

Aughrim, 299. 

Augusta, 166. 

Augustine (^Engus), work on mira- 
cles, 106, 190. 

Augustine, known to Irish, 39, 48; 
of Canterbury, 196, 199, 200, 204, 
204-205, 220, 232, 263-264. 

Ausonius, 30. 

Austria, Irish in, 12. 

Avienus, 176. 

Ayrshire, 316. 

Azores, known to Irish, 11, 189. 



340 



Index 



B 



Bag Enderly, 281. 

Bain's Calendar of Documents, 324. 

Baithan, 146. 

Baithene, 135, 140; on Columcille, 
122. 

Baldred, 184. 

Baja, 183. 

Bamberg ms., 187. 

Bamborough, 218, 288. 

Bamburgh, 224. 

Banfleda, Queen, 228. 

Bangor, 3; founded by Comgall, 33; 
fame of, 35 ; number of students 
in, 49; rival of Tailtenn, 112. 

Bangor-Iscoed, 182. 

Baoithin, 21. 

Barbour, 318, 322, 

Bardic Order in Ireland, 66. 

Bards, Columcille's defense of, 139. 

Bardney, 223. 

Barking, 221. 

Barkney, 223. 

Basil and Armenian students in 
Athens compared with Theodore 
and Irish students at Canterbury, 
266 note. 

Bath, 277. 

Battle of Magh Ruth, Pub. I. A. S., 

175- 

Bavaria, 196. 

Beag Erin, 185. 

Becchetti, 190. 

Bede, 55, 56-58, 64-65, 68, 78, 113- 
114, 123, 126, 129, 137, 152, 153, 
154, 158, 164, 176, 182, 193, 194, 
197-198, 199, 200, 221, 205, 207, 213, 
216-219, 224, 226, 222-229, 230-252, 
254-256, 262, 265, 267, 270; influ- 
ence by Irish scholars, 271 ; history 
modeled on Irish works, 272. 

Bedell's Irish version of Scriptures, 
320. 

Bedwyn, 254. 

Begery, 185. 

Begha (Bee), 185-186, 222. 

Beith, 242. 

Belgium, Irish in, 12, 16. 



Benedict XII, 191. 

Benedictine rule, intro. of, into En- 
gland, 264; monasteries, restoration 
of, 276, 

Benedictines, note on, 47. 

Benet Biscop, 264, 269, 271, 287. 

Benwell, 224. 

Beokery, 277. 

Beorwald, 307. 

Berger, Histoire de la Vulgate, 189. 

Berin's Hill, 242. 

Bernicia, 213. 

Bertha, 196, 204. 

Bertuin, 16. 

Betti, 225, 226. 

Bewcastle Cross, 281, 282. 

Biere (Saxony) Ogham, characters 
in, 172. 

Birinus, Bishop, 241-243, 244. 

Blackhill, 224. 

Blaithmac, 234. 

Blind Harry, 318. 

Bobbio, founded by Columbanus, 15, 
21 ; library of, 74- 

Bodleian Library at Oxford, ms. 
life of Columcille, 123. 

Bodleian Library, ms. at, 142. 

Boece, Hector, 211, 315, 331-332. 

Boek Ereie, 184. 

Boethius, 39, 72, 291. 

Boisel, 211, 221, 271. 

Bollandists, 179. 

Boniface, 10, 180, 197, 223, 251, 252, 
266, 287, 307. 

Book of Armagh, 74. 

Book of Ballymote, 65, 91. 

Book of Deir, 45, 74, 300. 

Book of Dun Cow, 74, 105, note, 154. 

Book of Durrow, 148. 

Book of K^lls, 12, 148. 

Book of Lecain, 154, 168, 309. 

Book of Leinster, 64, 74, 123, 275. 

Book of Lindisfarne, 274. 

Book of Lismore, 123; its life of Col- 
umcille, 125, 126, 136, 137. 

Book of Rights, tr. O'Donovan, 177, 
307. 



341 



Inde 



x 



Books in Ireland, 38-40. 

Bosa, 222. 

Bosham, monastery of, 255. 

Boston, 224. 

Boswell, on An Irish Precursor of 

Dante, 49. 
Bothach, 302. 
Brabant, 16. 
Bradford-on-Avon, battle of, 250; 

church at, 269, 281. 
Brandoff, 180. 
Brecknock, Ogham, inscriptions in, 

171. 
Brehon codes, 35. 
Brehon Laws, 38, 41, 64. 
Brenan, Eccl. Hist, of Ireland, 

quoted, 22. 
Brendan of Birr, 129, 134, 141. 
Brendan of Clonfert, the navigator, 

53, 106, 129, 141, 187, 189. 
Brendan, city of, 34. 
Brendan's Legend, 106. 
Breviary of Aberdeen, 229. 
Brewer, J. S., Works of Giraldus 

Cambrensis, 86, 203. 
Brian, King, victory over Danes, 292. 
Brie, 223. 
Brigid, pilgrimages to shrine of, 19; 

221. 
Bristol, 251, 306. 
Britain and Ireland, moving world 

of, 131-134. 



Britain, Anglo-Jute-Saxon, conquest 
of, IS7-IS9 ; Gael and Sassenach in, 
157-160; Irish clans in, 160-163; 
Irish invasions of, 163-170; Irish 
kings in, 166-170; power of Gael 
in, 175-178; and Ireland, commerce 
and intercourse between, 177 ; Irish 
intellectual intercourse with, 186- 
189; disappearance of Roman civ- 
ilization from, 198; Irish channels 
of entry into, 243-245. 

Briton, lack of fighting spirit in, 

159. 

Brittany, 59, 159, 189. 

Brown, Aldhelm, 266. 

Bruce, 316. 

Brude, king of the Picts, 143. 

Brugh-righ, king of, 308. 

Brunhilda, Queen, 196. 

Buchan, 155. 

Bugga, 254. 

Buite in Pictland, 135, 155. 

Burghcastle, 245. 

Burgundian Library at Brussels, ins. 
at, 142. 

Buriana, 188. 

Burns, Book of Days, 295, note; Jus- 
tice, 295; Notes and Queries, 295. 

Burt, Edward, quoted, 317-318. 

Burton, Hist, of Scotland, 9, 51, 234. 

Bury's Later Roman Empire, 28. 

Bute, 114. 



Cadoc, 56. 

Cadvan, 173. 

Cadwalla, 215. 

Caedmon, 265. 

Caelin, 248. 

Caerleon, 167. 

Caesar (Julian the Apostate), 165. 

Cailtan, magician, 120. 

Cainnech, 106, 125, 134, 141. 

Caithness, 115. 

Cairbre Muse, 175-176. 

Calcacestir, 222. 

Caledonia, conquest of, 159. 

Calendar of Cashel, 183. 



Calendar of Scottish Papers, cited, 

316. 
Cambrai, Irish in, n. 
Cambrensis Eversus, 41. 
Cambria, 197. 
Camden, Britannia, 55-56, 183, 185, 

253, 297, 333- 
"Camel," Earl of Argyle, 317. 
Campion, Account of Ireland, 45. 
Cana, 65. 
Candidus, 71, 303. 
Canmore, Malcolm, 315; court of, 

317; marriage with Margaret, 320. 
Canterbury, 3, 20, 204, 258; Irish- 



342 



Index 



men in, 260-261 ; Theodore and 

"Molossian Hounds" at, 264-268; 

Irish active in, 266-267, 278; 

reason for Irish students at, 267. 
Canute, sister of, 304. 
Caractacus, 174. 

Cardigan, Ogham inscription in, 171. 
Cardinal of Cambrai, 190. 
Carham, Irish defeat of English at, 

85; battle of, 326. 
Caribert, 196. 
Carlisle, 224. 
Carmarthen, Ogham inscriptions in, 

171. 
Carnarvon, 171. 
Caroline characters, 173. 
Carolingian Revival, n, 24-26. 
Carolingian era, Irish scholars in, 

79-80. 
Carolingian schools, Irish genealogy 

of, 79-82. 
Carrick, 316, 318. 
Carswell, Bishop, version of Knox's 

Prayer-book, 320. 
Carthage, Irish in, 10, 190. 
Cashel, king, of, 308. 
Cassiodorus, known to Irish, 39, ^2. 
Cathach, 148. 

Cathal, son of king of Connaught, 59. 
Cathaldus of Lismore, 18, 54. 
Catholic World, "Irish Names in 

Caesar," 90. 
Caunchobrach, 188. 
Ceadda, 248, 249. 
Ceallach (Gallus) founds St. Gall, 

16, 248. 
Cedd, 211, 225, 226, 277, 229. 
Celin, 227. 
Cellan and Aldhelm, correspondence 

between, 258-261. 
Celtic invasions of Ireland, 29. 
Celtic, mother of Irish language, 89- 

90. 
"Celtic" usages and the Synod of 

Whitby, 230-232. 
Celts in Greece, 89; in Rome, 89. 
Centwine, 254. 
Cenwealh, 185. 
Ceolfrid, 264, 271. 



Ceollach, 226. 

Ceolwulf, 178, 272, 284. 

Ciaran, founder of Clonmacnois, 53, 
105; aid of Diarmuid to, 108; 
friend of Columcille, 124, 125, 
141; Columcille's poem to, 137; 
called the Great, 140. 

Ciaran of Kintyre, 155. 

Cicero, some speeches of, preserved 
by Irish, 39. 

Cilia, 254. 

Cinead (Kenneth) mac Alpin, 114- 
115. 

Cineal ^Edha, king of, 308. 

Cirencester, 281. 

Cissa, 254, 255. 

Civilization, stream of, divided, 2; 
restoration of, 6-8; Christianity 
synonymous with, 96; and Chris- 
tianity, parallel promulgation of, 
99-101. 

Chad, 211, 225, 227, 248, 249, 271. 

Chalcidius, known to Irish, 39. 

Chalmers, Caledonia, 202, 314. 

Charisius, known to Irish, 39. 

Charlemagne, empire of, Irish schol- 
ars in, 24, 79, 80, I2i. 

Charles II, Gaelic at court of, 317. 

Charters of Inchaffray Abbey, 318. 

Chartulary of Lindores, 325. 

Chaucer, 191 ; of French blood, 290, 
296. 

Chelles, 223. 

Chester, 167, 251, 277. 

Chichester, see of, 255. 

Choeroboscus, 68. 

Christians in Ireland before St. Pat- 
rick, 31. 

Christianity, came to Ireland, 7-8; 
universities in Ireland after intro- 
duction of, 32; effect of, on Irish 
military, 85 ; synonymous with 
civilization, 96; and civilization, 
parallel promulgation of, 99-101 ; 
in England, delay of, 195-213. 

Chronicle of Abingdon, 254, 255. 

Chronicle of Ademar, 88. 

Chronicle of Picts and Scots, ed. 
Skene, 183. 



343 



Index 



Chronicles of Stephen, cited, 326. 

Chrysostom, in every Irish monas- 
tery, 18; known to Irish, 39, 181. 

Clan-na-boy, 162. 

Claudian, quoted, 166, 167. 

Claudianus Mamertus, known to 
Irish, 39. 

Clemens, 21. 

Clement of Alexandria, known to 
Irish, 39. 

Clement of Ireland, 24, 279. 

Cli, 65. 

Clogher, Aidan bishop of, 220. 

Clonard, founded by Finnian, 3; 
number of students in, 49 ; a school 
for princes, 58-59; out-glories 
Emain-Macha, 112; Columcille at, 
124; cell of Columcille at, 134. 

Clonenagh, 3. 

Clonfert, founded by St. Brendan, 
3, 33> 34; number of students in, 
49, 53- 

Clonmacnois, founded by Ciaran, 3, 
32, 33, 34-35, 44, 137, 139 5 connec- 
tion with various centers, 272, 273. 

Clontarf, Irish victory at, 85, 93. 

Clotilde, 196. 

Clovis, 196, 247. 

Cnobheresburg, 245. 

Cobham, 247. 

Coelfrid, 154. 

Coinwalch, 254. 

Coldingham, 221, 223. 

Coleman, 305. 

Colgan, Acta S. Hib., 60, 179, 253; 
list of Columcille's writings, 142. 

Colgu of Clonmacnois, 188, 272, 273; 
letter to, 279. 

Collingham, 271. 

Collins, quoted, 21. 

Colman, patron of Lower Austria, 
17. 

Colman, Irish bishop in England, 20, 
58, 153, note, 228; departure from 
England, 230; work in England, 
231, 233, 234; frugality of, 235; 
founds "Mayo of the Saxons," 
236-238; his work in England, 248, 
262, 284. 



Cologne, Irish in, 11. 

Columba, see Columcille. 

Columbanus, 5; monasteries founded 
by, in France, 10; expulsion from 
Luxeuil, 15; modesty of, 22-23; 
writings of, 31 ; correspondence 
with Gregory the Great, 70-71, 230; 
contemporary with Cassiodorus, 72 ; 
contemporary with Columcille, 105, 
117-118; Alcuin on, 154; sojourn in 
England, 199 ; Lawrence of Canter- 
bury and, 205; his authority with 
Kings, 233; his foundations in 
Burgundy, 241 ; with correspond- 
ence of French bishops, 266; his 
journey through Britain, 279. 

Columbian foundations, 35. 

Columbian brotherhood, 155. 

Columcille, high birth, 13; inaugura- 
tion of King Aidan, 20; writings 
of, 3i, 137', at Parliament of Drum- 
ceat, 66, 138-139; motive of his 
exile, 95 ; contemporary with Col- 
umbanus, 105 ; conflict of Diarmuid 
with, 108; lineage of (table), 116- 
117; archpresbyter of the Gael, 
116-118; Christian Cuchulain, 
119-121; facts of life, 122-126; 
description of person, 127; re- 
sponsibility for battle of Cul- 
dreimhne, 127-129; threatened ex- 
communication of, 129; exile of, 
to Iona, 129-130; missionary labors 
of, in Scotland, 130; lowly work 
of, 138; acclaimed by multitudes, 
139-140; defense of bards, 139; 
friendships of, 140-144; illuminated 
ms. and Latin poems of, 148-149; 
life, work and successors, 116-156; 
time of death of, 145; Saxons at 
Iona in his time, 201 ; prays for 
Aidan fighting the barbarians, 202 ; 
posthumous influence in Easter 
question, 228; attitude towards 
kings, 233. 

Comgall, writings preserved by Col- 
umbanus, note on, 33; founds 
Bangor, 106; anecdote concerning, 
125; visits Iona, 134; friend of 



344 



Index 



Columcille, 141 ; connection with 
Bangor in Wales, 182. 

Comyn, D., Intro, to Gaelic History, 
quoted, 182. 

Conaill Crimthann, 107. 

Conaill Gulban, 107. 

Conaire, 175, 176. 

Conal Culban, descendants of, 234. 

Conall, King, 130. 

Conan, 255. 

Conn of the Hundred Battles, 163. 

Connaught, kingdom of, 107, 115, 161, 
162. 

Constans, 165. 

Constantine, 169. 

Constantinople, Irish in, 11, 18. 

Corbican, 247. 

Corbie, 211, 247, 276. 

Corhampton, church of, 281. 

Cork, Ogham inscriptions in, 171. 

Cormac (of Cashel), quotes Irish 
authors, 30; Glossary of, 41, 173- 
174, 175-176, 183. 

Cormac (King), university estab- 
lished by, 31-32; description of, at 
Tara, 91-92; "sovereign of Alba," 
163. 

Cormac, friend of Columcille, 126, 
134, 141 ; indefatigable navigator, 
142 ; approaches Arctic Circle, 143 ; 
visits Iceland, 143; among islands 
of the North, 189. 

Corman, 211. 

Cornwalch, 243. 

Cornwall, 159, 170; Ogham inscrip- 
tions in, 171, 189. 

Correspondence between Aldhelm and 
Cellan, 258-261. 

Council of Bavaria establishes 
schools, 80, 



Council of Constance, 190-192. 

Craig, Sir Thomas, 315. 

Craike, 221. 

Cremona, 81. 

Cricklade (Greeklade), 286. 

Crimhthann, 176. 

Crimthann Mor (Criffan the Great), 

163-164. 
Crith Gablach, Sequel of, 41. 
Crowe, CBeirne, 122. 
Croyland Abbey, 198. 
Cruachain, 158. 
Cryptography, 187. 
Cuchulain, 96-97; compared with 

Columcille, 119-121; valor of, 120. 
Cuican, 274. 

Cuimine, on Columcille, 122. 
Culdreimhne, battle of, 108, 127-129. 
Culinan, 174, 175. 
Culture of Ireland living reality, 73- 

76. 
Cumberland, 185, 186, 251. 
Cummian, paschal epistle of, 106, 

118; its remarkable erudition, 231, 

note; gave general Irish view, 262. 
Cunceceastre, 221. 
Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, 220, 271. 
Cuthbert (of Canterbury) Boniface's 

letter to, on female pilgrimages to 

Rome, 287, 307. i 
Cynan (Caionain), 179. 
Cynebil, 227, 248. 
Cynefrid, 271. 
Cynegils, 241, 243. 
Cymri, 170, 176. 
Cymric, 180. 

Cymry (Comrades), 186. 
Cynewulf, 265. 
Cyssebui, 254. 



D 



Dagan, Bishop, 205, 267. 

Dagobert, son, king of Austria, 57. 

Daire (Derry) Columcille founds 

church and school at, 125-126. 
Dairius, 177. 



Dalian Forgaill, quoted, 64. 
Dalriada, 102, 162. 
Dalrymple, Father, 332. 
DAlton's History of Ireland, 297, 
note. 



345 



Inde 



x 



Danes, crushed by Irish at Clontarf, 

85; in Ireland, 93-94; English 

slaves of, 304; in England, 292-293. 
Daniel (Danihel), Bishop, 251-253. 
Darmesteter, English Studies, quoted, 

52. 
Dathi, 8, 168. 

David (Scotland), court of, 322. 
De Abbatibus, 271, 274. 
De Bello Gothico, 167. 
De Consulatu Stilichonis, 167. 
de Jubainville, Revue Celtique, 168. 
De Locis Sanctis, Adamnan, 54, 153- 

154. 
De Re Militari of Vegetius, 76. 
Deece, near Tara, 174. 
Decies in Munster, 174. 
Declan, 53. 
Degrees conferred in Irish schools, 

listed, 40-41. 
Deira, 213. 
Deise, 183. 

Deerhurst, church of, 281. 
Denbighshire, 171. 
Denmark, 211. 
Derry, 132, 133. 
Desii, 174. 

Desmond, school of, 35, 53, 173. 
Deva (Roman), 167. 
Devon, 159, 170, 171. 
Diarmuid, High King, reign of, 106- 

108, 128. 
Diarmuid, attendant of Columcille, 

138, 145, 146, 147, 202. 
Diarmuid, King of Leinster, 297. 
Dicuil, disciple of Columbanus, 

founds Lure, 15; in England, 199. 
Dicuil, the Geographer, 17, 22; his 

De Mensura Orbis Tenae, ed 

Parthey, 143; his journey to 

France, 279. 
Dicuil, missionary in England, 244, 

248, 255, 270. 
Dima, son of, 126. 
"Dind map Letani," 174. 
Dinn map Laethain, 176. 
Diuma, 225, 226, 248, 270. 
Domesday Book, 85, 251-252. 



Dominnach, 188. 

Donatus (Donncadh) of Fiesole, 19; 

modesty of, 23; his poem on Ire- 
land, 88. 
Donatus (grammarian), known to 

Irish, 39. 
Donn Coirci, 114. 
Dorcic, 242. 
Doss, 65. 

Douglas, Gavin, JEneis, quoted. 
Dowth, 281. 

Drayton's "Polyolbion," 286. 
Drostan in Aberdour, 155. 
Drumceat, Synod of, 66-67; meeting 

at, in sixth century, 106; work of 

Columcille at, 122; Columcille at, 

138-139. 
Drumcliff, founded by, 127. 
Drythelm, 56-57. 
Dublin, gift of Gruffyd to, 179. 
Dublin Review, 272. 
Dubslane, 275. 
Dubtach, 187-188. 
Dulcert, map of, 278. 
Dumbarney, 242. 
Dumbarton, 315. 
Dun ^Enghus, 
Dunbar, Flyting of Dunbar and Ken- 

nedie, 316, 318, 333 ; Golden Targe, 

319. 
Duncan (Dunchad), writings of, 22. 
Dungal of St. Denis, his versatility, 

22; modesty of, 23; his acumen, 

285. 
Dungal of Pavia, 81, 279, 285. 
Dunkeld, 154-1SS. 
Duns Scotus, last of Irish schoolmen, 

6; his work almost unequaled in 

human history, 295. 
Dunstan, 185, 264, 265, 276-277; 

Irish literati before and after, 276- 

279; abbot, 289; statesman, 327. 
Dun Tradui, 176. 
Durrow, founded by Columcille, 

126, 139, 142. 
Dwelly, Gaelic Dictionary, 333. 
Dyfed, 174. 
Dymphna, 20. 



346 



Index 



E 



Eadbert, 224. 

Eadfrid, letter to, 256, 268, 274. 

Eadgar, 277. 

Eadmund, 328. 

Eadric, King, 268. 

Eadwine of Northumbria, 205, 214, 

21S. 

Eahfrid, letter of Aldhelm to, 267- 
268; identified, 268. 

Eanfrid, 207, 214, 215. 

Earca, 162, 164. 

East Anglia, 194, 205, 243, 244, 270. 

East Anglians, Irish mission among, 
240-241. 

East Saxons, 225, 226; Finan re-con- 
verts, 226-227. 

Easter, observance of, 152-153; con- 
troversy, rise of, 227-229; contro- 
versy, literary product of, 231. 

Eata, 16, 211, 234-235, 271, 273. 

Ec. Hist., cited, 64-65. 

Ecgberht of York, 304. 

Ecgfrid, 240. 

Ecgfrith, 151. 

Echfrith, 268. 

Eddi's life of Wilfrid, cited, 57. 

Edinburgh, 329-330. 

Edgar, charter of, 185. 

Edward the Confessor, 288. 

Edward I, 324. 

Edwin of Northumbria, 173, 329. 

Edwy, King, 289. 

Egberht, 274. 

Egbert, 56; letter of Bede to, 235, 
265. 

Egypt, Irish in, 17. 

Einhard, 121. 

Eire, explained, 46. 

Eleutheruis, 241. 

Elgiva, 289. 

Ely, 221, 223. 

Emain-Macha (Emania), 112, 281. 

Empires of Europe, 190. 

Encyclopedia Americana, "Irish 
Archeological Remains," Fitzpat- 
rick, 44. 

Enda, 53. 



England, Anglo-Saxon, civilization 
in, 3 ; Irish in, 9-10, 20 ; French in, 
86-87; lack of freedom in, 109-110; 
Irish share in conversion of, 194- 
195 ; cannibalism in, 201 ; slave 
traffic in, 201 ; helplessness of bar- 
barians in, 201-203 '■> mission of 
Augustine in, a failure, 204-205 ; 
Irish missionaries in, 206-215; 
Aidan and foundations in, 219-224; 
source of civilized progress in, 
265-266; Irish plant arts and in- 
dustries in, 268-271 ; by time of 
Bede and Alcuin, 271-274; always 
Irish in, 278-279 ; whole art of, trans- 
planted Irish art, 280-282; seed of 
Irish law and opinion in, 282-284; 
Irish influence in law in, 282-284; 
Danes in, 292-293; Irish authority 
in, gives way to French, 293-300; 
French culture in, 295-297. 

English, literature, sources of, 65; 
destruction of Irish literature, 76- 
79; slaves in Ireland, 87-88; as 
nation, 190-192; ignorance of debt 
owed to Irish, 193-195; conversion 
of, delayed by neglect, 195-198; an- 
tipathy to, 196-198; aborigines, repu- 
tation of, among civilized peoples, 
198-201 ; and Irish beginning of 
peaceful intercourse, 202; civiliza- 
tion, Irish work beginning of, 206- 
207; tribes, Aidan among, 207-211; 
sheltered and educated in Ireland, 
214-215; sentiment of idolatry for 
Ireland and Irish, 239-240; Irish 
influence more than Roman among, 
262-264 ; aborigines, incorrigible 
brutality of, 287-289; learning 
killed at birth, 289-293; history, 
obscured, 290-291 ; under French 
rule, 294-297; slaves in Ireland, 
301-313; slaves in Ireland, treat- 
ment of, 310-313; slaves in En- 
gland, treatment of, 311-313. 

English Hist. Review, cited, 310. 

Eochaid, 174. 

347 



Index 



Eochaidh Muighmeadhoin, 164. 

Eoghan, 107. 

Epitome of the Irish Laws of Metre, 

154. 
Eppa, 307. 
Ere, sons of, 114. 
Eric of Auxerre, 6; Vita S. Germani, 

24, 59- 
Eriugena, Johannes Scotus, intellec- 
tual rank, 26; knowledge of Greek, 
25; probably a layman, 43; De 
Divisione Naturae, quoted, 48; 
why works preserved, 69, 77; his 
philosophy, 69; compared with 
Byzantine, 70; his association 
with kings, 233; not in England, 
275; intellectual eminence, 285. 



Erlebald, 81. 

Essex, 1, 95, 204, 270. 

Ethelbert, 196, 204. 

Ethelfrid, 207, 214. 

Ethelfrith, 201. 

Ethelred, 304. 

Ethelred II, 278. 

Ethicus, opinion of Ireland, 30. 

Ethne, mother of Columcille, 123. 

Etto, 247. 

Eugenius II, establishes schools, 80. 

Europe, Irish established literature 

in, 22. 
Evesham, 269. 
Ewald, 56. 
Exeter Book, 198. 
Exeter, probably Irish, 251, 253. 



F 



Fabius Ethelward, chronicle of, 275. 

Falmouth, 189. 

Fame, 218, 221. 

Faroe Islands, discovered by Irish, 
11; Irish in, 18, 189. 

Feartullagh, 307. 

Fedhlimidh, father of Columcille, 123. 

Felire of iEngus, ed. by' Stokes, 
quoted, 112. 

Felix, 198, 205 ; in East Angles, 219 ; 
Bishop, 241. 

Felixstowe, 241. 

Feppingum, 226. 

Fera Tulach, 307. 

Ferghill, 80; of Salzburg, 279. 

Fergus, 128; in Caithness, 155, 188. 

Fergus Mor, 114-115, 162. 

Ferguson, Sheriff, of Kinmundy, 
cited, 326. 

Fiana, the, 158. 

Fianna, warrior hosts of, 8, 97. 

Fidach, 176. 

Fidelis, measured Pyramids, 17. 

Fina, 214. 

Finan, in England, 20, 153, 222; 
wins Midland England, 224-226; 
work of, after Aidan, 224-229; re- 
converts East Saxons, 226-227; 
date of death, 229; his work, 231, 
233, 248, 249, 270. 



Fingen, founds St. Vanmes, 17. 

Finian, 187. 

Finnachta of Ireland, 135, 150-151, 
152. 

Finnian, 105, 106, 123, 127-128, 129. 

Finnian of Clonard, 124-125. 

Finnian's Vulgate, 148. 

Fintan, 135. 

Fitzpatrick, Irish Archeological Re- 
mains, Encyclopedia Americana, 
cited, 281. 

Flan Fiona, 214. 

Flanders, 16. 

Flann, 43. 

Flannery, For the Tongue of the 
Gael, 88. 

Fleming, Collectanea Sacra, 71. 

Florence, school at, 81. 

Florence of Worcester, cited, 253, 
277. 

Foillan, 21, 244, 247. 

Fontaines, 241. 

Fontenelles, founded by Wandres- 
gisel, 18. 

Forbes, Bishop, 242. 

Fordun, 202. 

Fordun, History, 318. 

Forgaill, Dalian, on Columcille, 122. 

Forloc, 65. 

Fort of MacLeithan, 176. 



348 



Index 



Portheri, 307. 

Fowler, J. T., cited, 122. 

France, Irish in, 12; schools in, 241. 

Fraser, Rev. John, quoted, 317. 

Fredegis, 265. 

Freeman, 200. 

French, in Ireland, 85-86 ; in England, 
86-87; authority in England, Irish 
gives way to, 293-300; cruelty in 
England, 294-295 ; speech and in- 
fluence in Scotland, 320-323. 

Fridoald founds Granfelden, 16. 



Fridolin the Traveler, 17; life of, 60. 

Frigidian (San Frediano), 19. 

Frome, 250, 269. 

Froshwell, 249. 

Fudir, 302. 

Fulda, 17. 

Fultofondes, 165. 

Fursa and disciples, 16, 20; inspired 
Dante, 21 ; of the Visions, route of 
journey, 243, 244, 245; life and 
work of, 246-248; to France, 247; 
influence, 258, 259, 270, 279. 



Gael (Gaedhal), explained, 8; 
Archpresbyter of the, 116-118; and 
Sassenach in Britain, 157-160; 
in Britain, power of, 175-178. 

Gaelic language, used in schools, 37. 

Gaidoz, Les gateaux alphabetiques, 
124. 

Gainford, 221. 

Galamh, eponym of Irish race, 161. 

Gall. Christ., 228. 

Galloway, 316, 318. 

Gallus, modesty of, 23. 

Gardthausen cited, 273. 

Gartan, birthplace of Columcille, 123. 

Gateshead, 224. 

Gemman, 123. 

Genere, 201. 

Georgi, 201. 

Geography, Irish study of, 278. 

Germany, Irish in, 10, 12, 17. 

Gethlingen (Gilling), 248. 

Gewissae, 241-242. 

Ghent, 16. 

Gibbon, Bury's, quoted, 72. 

Gilbert, quoted, 90. 

Gilbert's Viceroys, 298. 

Gildas, at Armagh, 55; (younger), 
59; quoted, 168; cited, 169; (of 
Wales), 179, 197. 

Giles, 238; Aldhelmi Opera, 257, 258, 
260, 266, 268; Epist. ad Acircium, 
cited, 257 ; Six Old English Chroni- 
cles, 276. 



Gilling, monastery at, 224. 

Giollacrist, 154. 

Giraldus Cambrensis, quoted, 86; De- 
scription of Wales, cited, 86; cited, 
92, 297. 

Girvan, inquisition at, 324. 

Glamorgan, Ogham, inscriptions in, 
171. 

Glasnevin, Columcille at, 125. 

Glastingaea, 184. 

Glastonbury, 10, 183-184, 251, 276, 

277. 
Glastonia, 184. 
Glendalough, 3, 33, 35. 
Glossary of Cormac, quoted, 163. 
Gloucester, 172. 
Gobain, 244, 247. 
Godwin, wife of, 304. 
Gold, abundance of, in Ireland, 91- 

94. 
Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria, 115. 
Gougaud, Les Chretientes Celtiques, 

94. 

Gould, S. Baring, Book of the West 
Cornwall, and Devon, 177. 

Graves, Contemporary Review, 149. 

Great Britain, Irish in, 12. 

Greece, Celts in, 89. 

Greek, Irish knowledge of, 24; in 
Ireland, 75; teaching of, intro- 
duced, into Canterbury by Adrian, 
267. 



349 



Index 



Green, John Richard, Letters of, 86; 
Hist, of England, quoted, 269, 291, 
329- 

Green (Mrs.), Irish Nationality, 43; 
Making of Ireland and Its Undo- 
ing, 93, 295, 310. 

Gregory the Great, Moralia as text- 
book, 39; Columbanus' letter to, 
70-71 ; Pope, quoted, 196 ; influence, 



199, 204, 230, 263, 265, 266, 291, 

303. 
Grianan Ely, 281. 
Grimold, 57. 

Groans of the Britons, 168. 
Gruffyd, 179. 
Grumcolumb, founded by Columcille, 

127. 
Gwyddel, 176. 
Gwynedd, 170. 



H 



Haddan, Remains, 258; cited, 307. 
Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and 

Ecclesiastical Documents, cited, 

187, 252. 
Hadrian, 258, 260. 
Hadrian's wall, 166. 
Haemgils, 56-57. 

Hampshire, Ogham inscription in, 171. 
Harold, 288-289. 
Harrington, 224. 

Hartlepool, convent at, 20, 222, 224. 
Hastings, battle of, 85. 
Haureau, Singularites, 54, 71. 
Healy, Ireland's Ancient Schools, 

cited, 35, 41, 51, 231 ; Petrie's Mon- 

umenta, 276. 
Hean, 254, 255. 
Heavenfield, battle of, 215. 
Heber, descendants of, l6l. 
Hebrides, 114, 189. 
Hedda, 222, 242. 
Heito, 81. 
Heiu, 222. 

Helera on the Moselle, 60. 
Helvetia, 196. 
Hely's Transl. Senchus na Relic, etc., 

quoted, 32. 
Hemgislus, 184. 
Hendry, 316. 

Hengist and Horsa, 202, 288. 
Henry II, of Normandy and En- 
gland, 296, 297, 310, 311. 
Henry VIII, King of England, 74, 

109, 295, 296; imperial ambitions 



of, 299-300; English under, 311- 

312. 
Hereford, 288-289. 
Heremon, descendants of, 161. 
Heremonian nobility, 162. 
Hereric, 222. 
Heresuid, 223. 
Herutea, 222. 

Hexham, 273; oratory at, 281. 
Hibernia, explained, 8. 
Hibernicizing of North Britain, 152- 

156. 
Highlanders and Lowlanders both 

Gaels, 33^-333- 
Hilary, known to Irish, 39. 
Hilda, 229. 

Hiliaricum, near the Saar, 60. 
Hisperica Famina, 258. 
Hist. Britt., quoted, 173. 
Hist. Lit. de la France, 22. 
Historia de Gestis Regum Anglorum, 

270. 
Historians of Scotland, 122. 
Hodgkin, Political History of En- 
gland, 287. 
Hogan, The Irish People, Their 

Height, Form and Strength, 157. 
Hohenau, 183. 
Holder, Alt-Celtischer Sprachschatz, 

9, 90, 176. 
Hole, D. C. B., 260. 
Holland, Irish in, 12. 
Holland, Philemon, 333. 
Holy Land, Pellegrinus in, 17. 
Holyhead, 178. 



350 



Index 



Homer, ioo. 

Honau, 10. 

Honorius of Canterbury, 219, 241. 

Horace, oldest manuscript in Irish 
hand, 75, 124. 

Howell, James, Familiar Letters, 
quoted, 332. 

Huber, cited, 275. 

Howorth, Golden Days of the En- 
glish Church, quoted, 206, 224, 264. 



Hume, 320. 

Hutton, Finding of the Tain, quoted, 

33; Writing of the Tain, quoted, 

35, 168. 
Hy, island of, 130. 
Hy Fiachrach, 66. 
Hy Niall, 142. 
Hyde, Literary History of Ireland, 

42, 79, 126, 145, 162; MacTernan 

Prize Essays, cited, 65. 



Iceland, discovered by Irish, 10 ; Irish 
in, 17, 18; Cormac in, 143, 189. 

Ichtian Sea, 176. 

Iliad, 119. 

In Pisonem of Cicero, in Irish, 75. 

In te Christe, 148. 

Ina, dooms of, 304, 184, 188. 

"Indarba mna n Dese," 174. 

Inis Eoghain, king of, 308. 

Inisboffin, 236, 237. 

Iniscathy, 220. 

Ingelborne, 250. 

Ingethlingum, 226. 

Iona, 3, 21, 54; Columcille at, 126; 
cause of Columcille's exile to, 127, 
129; established, 130; Columcille 
and brethren at, 131-156; guests at, 
134; almsgiving at, 134; ritual and 
ceremonial at, 134-136; authority 
of abbot at, 136; literary work and 
other occupations at, 136-140; 
drought at, note, 137 ; last scene at, 
145-158; Adamnan at, 149-154; 
successors of Columcille at, 154; 
decline of, 154-155 ; burial place of 
kings of Scotland, 155, 182, 187; 
Saxons at, 201, 207, 209; Oswald 
at, 214; Easter in, 263. 

Ir, descendants of, 161. 

Ireland, home of Western learning, 
1-4. 

Ireland, schools of, 3-4; literary out- 
put in, 4; beginning of Christianity 
in, 7-8; claim to great past, 12; 
ark of safety for the old wisdom, 
27-31; not included in ruin of 



Roman civilization, 28, ff ; peace 
and prosperity in, 29, ff; beginning 
of Gaelic monarchy in, 29; Celtic 
invasions of, 29; Milesian dynasty 
in, 29-30; culture in, before St. 
Patrick, 30; Christians in, before 
St. Patrick, 31 ; educational pro- 
ficiency of, 31-35; universities in, 
after introduction of Christianity, 
32; intellectual leader of Christen- 
dom, 5 2- 55 ; foreign students and 
visitors in, 53-55; Anglo-Saxon 
students in, 55-57 ; foreign students 
in, to twelfth century, 59-61 ; 
professional and lay educa- 
tion in, 62-65 ; secular schools in, 
proof of existence, 63-64; secular 
education in, reorganized, 66; cul- 
tivation of philosophy in, 69; En- 
glish destruction in, 74-75 ; high 
culture of a living reality, 73-76; 
establishment of Gaelic kingdom 
in, 84; medieval, military strength 
and wealth of, 84-87; emigra- 
tion of Norman French and 
Flemish to, 85-86; English 
slaves in, 87-88; not isolated 
from Europe, 88-90; Romans 
in, 89; luxurious civilization 
in, 90-91 ; abundance of gold 
in, 91-94; Danes in, 93-94; 
Christian, pagan spirit in, 96-98; 
home of liberal arts, 104; of the 
sixth century, 104-110; sense of 
freedom in, 109 ; always civilization 
in, no; ancient pagan and medieval 



351 



Index 



Christian, 110-113; civilization of 
Celts in, 111-112; and Britain, 
moving world of, 131-134; Roman 
coins on east coast of, 173; im- 
perial status of, 189-192; English 
sheltered and educated in, 214-215; 
stone churches in, 224; and Irish, 
English sentiment of idolatry for, 
239-240; Aldhelm and English stu- 
dents in, 256-258; Easter custom 
in, 262-263 ; socalled "Norman Con- 
quest" of, 297-298; conquest of, 
299; English slaves in, 301-313; 
high monarchs of, 334-335- 
Irish, language as literary vehicle, 4; 
culture, missionary instinct of, 4-6; 
Mission, 5; medieval work, variety 
and extent of, 8-12; language and 
literature studied, 11; founders of 
churches and cities, 13-17; i n 
Egypt, 17; in Germany, 17; in Ice- 
land, 17, 18; in Scandinavia, 17; 
from Iceland to Pyramids, 17-20; 
in Faroe Islands, 18; in England, 
20; in Scotland, 20; skilled in 
human learning, 20-23 ; established 
literature in Europe, 22; pioneers, 
modesty of, 22; mortifications 
voluntarily endured by, 23; knowl- 
edge of Greek, 24; laws, ancient, 
35 ; schools listed, 35 ; monasteries, 
centers of intellectual activity, 36- 
38; language, used in schools, 37; 
laymen, learned, 42-44; text-books 
and learned degrees, 38-41 ; learn- 
ing'* 37-38; preeminence in metal 
work, 44; colleges from sixth cen- 
tury, 44-46 ; language, uniform, 45 ; 
method of education, 45; monas- 
ticism, different from continental, 
46-48; "Philosophy" and "Wisdom," 
46-48; students, numbers of, 49-51 ; 
university centers, importance of, 
49-51; colleges for princes, 57-59; 
culture, original and independent, 
67-70; Triads, quoted, 67; school- 
men, self-assurance of, 71 ; aim to 
teach Europe, 68; culture, devotion 
to preservation of, 68-69; language 



in Europe and Asia, 72; teachers 
abroad, 73 ; literature, small preser- 
vation of, in Ireland, 73-74; Irish 
libraries, 74-79; manuscript, oldest 
in Switzerland, 75 ; literature, only 
fraction of what existed, 77-79; 
scholars in Carolingian era, 
79-80; genealogy of Carolingian 
schools, 79-82; organization of city 
and Christian society, 82-83 ; litera- 
ture, importance of, 89; dress de- 
scribed, 90; names in Europe, 90; 
jewels, collection of, 91; scholars, 
exodus of, 94-99; missionary zeal, 
94-101 ; literature, romance in, 98- 
99; invasion and conquest of Scot- 
land, twofold, 102-104; literature, 
110-112; Heroic cycle, 112; military 
conquest of Scotland, 113-115; as 
language of Scotland, 115; anxious 
to see Columcille, 141 ; exploration, 
from time of Columcille, 143-144; 
records, accuracy of, 145 ; in Scot- 
land, 154-156; physique of, note, 
157; clans in Britain, 160-163; 
pedigrees, note, 162; military expe- 
ditions abroad, 163-166; in- 
vasions of Britain, 163-170; Nen- 
nius, pub. of I. A. S., cited, 164; 
kings in Britain, 166-170; in 
Wales, 170-189; foundations in 
Wales, 181-186; intellectual inter- 
course with Britain, 186-189; En- 
glish ignorance of debt owed to, 
193-195 ; share in conversion of En- 
gland, 194-195; work beginning of 
English civilization, 206-207; mis- 
sionaries in England, 206-215 ; 
prelate and Anglian king, 211-213; 
founders, high birth and breeding 
of, 232-234; clerics, frugality and 
devotion of, 234-236; channels of 
entry into Britain, 243-245; influ- 
ence, more than Roman, among 
English, 262-264; script, total use 
of, in Anglo-Saxon ms., 265 ; schol- 
ars and schools, fame of, 267-268; 
plant arts and industries in En- 
gland, 268-271; scholars and King 



352 



Ind 



ex 



Alfred, 274-276; literati before 
and after Dunstan, 276-279; influ- 
ence in Anglo-Saxon art, 280-282; 
crosses in England, 280-282; archi- 
tecture in England, 281-282; in 
Scotland, 3*4-333 ', literature, refer- 
ences to English slavery in, 307- 
308; English reverence for, 293- 
294; authority in England gives 
way to French, 293-300; civiliza- 
tion, English mediocre imitation 
of, 285-287; law and opinion, seed 
of in England, 282-284; Abridg- 



men of Expugnatio Hibemica, ed. 
Stokes, quoted, 310; kings of Scot- 
land, 336; names and surnames in 
Scotland, 323-329; place-names in 
Scotland, 329-331 ; tongue in Scot- 
land, 315-320. 

Isca Silurum (Roman), 167. 

Isidore, known to Irish, 39, 331. 

Isle of Man, Ogham inscriptions in, 
170-171. 

Italy, Upper, Irish in, 12. 

Ithancester, 227, 249. 



Jaffe, Mon. Mag., cited, 307. 

James, Deacon, 205. 

James IV of Scotland, 315. 

James VI, 315. 

Juvencus, known to Irish, 39. 

Jarrow, 3; Adamnan at, 152, 271, 

273. 

Jedburgh Castle, 281. 

Jerome, authority on Scripture, 39, 
48. 

Jerusalem, Irish at, 275. 

Johannes Glastoniensis, 185. 

John, Irish missionary, in Sclavonia, 
17; of Tinmouth and Columcille, 
123; (Bishop), 222; name of, 251- 
252 ; of Beverly, 271 ; the Saxon, 
275, 276; of Fordun, cited, 331. 

Johnson, Dr., 320. 



Johnston, Place-Names in Scotland, 

cited, 330. 
Jonas, cited, 199. 
Jones, Rev. W. Basil, Vestiges of the 

Gael in Gwynedd, cited, 170-171, 

172. 
Josephus Scotus, 272. 
Jouarre, 223. 
Jovinus, 105. 
Joyce, Social History of Ireland, 

cited, 41; quoted, 42; cited, 49, 51, 

64, 145, 302, 313; Irish Names of 

Places, cited, 330. 
Justinian, Emperor, 72. 
Justus, 205. 
Jutland, 198. 
Juvenal's Satires, 89. 



K 



Keating, History, 41, 66-67, 163-164, 

182. 
Kemble, Codex Diplomaticiis , 184, 

268. 
Kennedy, Walter, 316. 
Kenneth mac Alpin, 155; King, 327. 
Kent, 194, 195, 199, 204; Romans in, 

263, 268; Irish active in, 266--267. 
Keller, Dr. Ferdinand, mentioned, 81. 
Kells, 44; founded by Columcille, 

127; use of, 155, 158. 



Kells, Book of, 12. 

Kelly, Matthew, cited, 193, 253. 

Kerry, Ogham inscriptions in, 171. 

Kilbally, foreigners in, 56. 

Kilbirnie, 242. 

Kildare, 221. 

Kilglass, founded by Columcille, 127. 

Killian, 17. 

Kil-mac-menain, 123. 

Kirkdale, church of, 281. 

Knowth, 281. 



24 



353 



Index 



Lactantius, known to Irish, 39, 300. 

Lake of Glasfrya Uchaf, 178. 

Land's End, 188. 

Lanfranc, 309. 

Lang, Andrew, cited, 324. 

Lanigan, 179; Eccl. History of Ire- 
land, cited, 253. 

Laon, 247. 

Lap-dog in Ireland, first, 176. 

Lastingham (Lestingau), 227. 

Latin in Ireland, 75. 

Laurentius, 205. 

Lawrence, 204, 205, 267. 

Lay students in Ireland, 62-65; edu- 
cation, first in Europe, 81. 

Laymen, learned Irish, 42-44- 

Leabar Breac, cited, 158. 

Leabar na g-Ceart, cited, 307, 308, 
310. 

Leeds, 224; Hist. Eccl, cited, 226. 

Leinster, 115; school of bards, Col- 
umcille at, 123, 161, 162. 

Leofric, Bishop, 198. 

Leslie, Bishop, Be Gestis Scotorum, 
cited, 332. 

Lestingham, 249. 

Lethain, 141. 

Lethredh, 202. 

Lethrigh, 202. 

Leutherius, Bishop, 251. 

Lex Adamnani (Cain Adhemhnain), 

152. 
Leyden Priscian, 188. 
"Liadain and Curithir," story of, 98- 

99- 
Liber Hymnorum, 148, 154. 
Lichfield, 249. 



Liege, Irish in, II, 75, 187, 188. 

Lightfoot, Bishop, cited, 195; Lead- 
ers of the Northern Church, cited, 
220. 

Lindisfarne, 10, 20, 194, 211, 218, 221, 
224, 230, 232, 234, 271, 272. 

Lismore, 3 ; founded by Carthach, 33, 

54- 

Literature in Ireland, small preser- 
vation of, 73-74; in Ireland in sixth 
century, 106; in Ireland in seventh 
century, 106; Irish, 110-112; func- 
tions of, 131. 

Liudger, 273. 

Liverpool, 224. 

Livinus, 16. 

Loarn, 114. 

London, 205. 

Lothair II, 75. 

Lothaire of Italy, establishes schools, 
80-81. 

Lough Neagh, 178. 

Louis the Pious, 80. 

Low Countries, Irish in, 16. 

Lowlanders and Highlanders both 
Gaels, 331-333. 

Lucretius known to Irish, 39. 

Lugair, 219. 

Lugdan, 166. 

Lughaidh, 162. 

Luidhard, Bishop, 196. 

Lure, founded by Dicuil, 15. 

Luxeuil, founded by Columbanus, 15, 
23, 182, 241. 

Lynch, Cambrensis Eversus, cited, 
183, 193, 220. 



M 



Mabillon, 47, 179; Annal. Ord. St. 
Bened., cited, 228. 

MacFarlane, Baxters Call to the Un- 
converted, 319-320. 

MacFuirmeadh, 65. 

MacNeacail, H. C, Scottish Review, 
cited, 333. 



MacNeill, 29; Phases of Irish His- 
tory, cited, 114; New Ireland Re- 
view, cited, 162 ; Royal Irish Acad., 
cited, 172. 

MacPherson, James, quoted, 319. 

Macaulay, History of England, cited, 
297, 321-322. 



354 



Index 



Macbeth, quoted, 155, 275. 
Mackinnon, Professor, cited, 316. 
Macleane, Pembroke College, cited, 

295. 
Macrobius, known to Irish, 39. 
Madelgisilus, 247. 
Maelceadar, 16. 
Maeldubh, 20, 58, 244. 
Maelduf and other Irishmen in Wes- 

sex, 250^253, 260. 
Maelinmain, 275. 
Maelrubha of Skye, 155. 
Maeve, Queen, 120. 
Mageo, 237. 
Magna Carta, 109; French influence 

in, 296. 
Magnoald, 19. 
Maidoc, 53. 

Mair (Major), John, quoted, 315. 
Major, Historie of Scotland, cited, 

332. 
Malcolm IV, 323. 
Malcolm, 328. 
Malmesbury, 10; derivation of 

name, 58, 183, 244, 250-251, 269. 
Manuscripts, old, in Irish, 75-76. 
Maolcalain, Abbot, 17. 
Map of the world, Anglo-Saxon Cot- 

toniana, 278. 
Marcus, bishop of S'oissons, 59-60, 81. 
Marianus Scotus, 17; Irish founda- 
tions established by, 83, 279. 
Marius Victorinus, known to Irish, 

Martianus Capella, known to Irish, 

39. 
Martyrology of Marianus Ua Gor- 

main, 183. 
Matthew of Paris, cited, 295. 
Maximinanus Herudeus, 249. 
Maximus, 169. 
Maxwell, Studies in the Topography 

of Galloway, cited, 330. 
Mayo of the Saxons, 58, 61 ; founded 

by Colman, 236-238. 
Mayor's, Bede, cited, 259. 
Meath, kingdom of, founded, 107; 

attack on, 151, 162. 
Mellitus, 205, 226. 



Melrose, 211, 221, 234, 271, 273. 

Menevia, 276. 

Menzies, Lucy, St. Columba of Iona, 
cited, 122. 

Mercia, 195, 243, 270; Duima, Chad, 
and Ceallach in, 248-249. 

Mercians, 218, 225. 

Merioneth, 171. 

Mermin, King, 187. 

Meroving, ed. Krusch, 60. 

Metz, Irish in, 11, 17. 

Meyer, Kultur der Gegenwart, 
quoted, 11 ; Ancient Irish Poetry, 
quoted, 45; Early Relations be- 
tween the Gael and Brython, cited, 
145; Otia Merseiana, cited, 168; 
Cymmrodor, cited, 174. 

Miathi, battle of, 202. 

Michael Scotus, 25. 

Micklewaite, Archeological Journal, 
quoted, 281, 282. 

Midland England, won by Finan, 
224-226. 

Migne, Patrologia, Latina, cited, 24, 
71, 88, 118, 154, 168, 169, 196, 197, 
199, 221, 231, 256, 262, 268, 271, 272, 
277, 279. 

Milan, Irish in, 11, 187. 

Milesian dynasty in Ireland, 29-30, 
84-85 ; descendants, 161. 

Milesius, descendants of, 161. 

Military strength of medieval Ire- 
land, 84-87. 

Milman, History of Latin Christian' 
ity, cited, 295. 

Milne, Gaelic Place-Names in the 
Lothians, cited, 330. 

Mission of Augustine a failure, 204- 
205. 

Mitchell, Rev. Anthony, quoted, 149. 

Miurchartach, 164. 

Mobhi, Columcille with, 125. 

Mochona, quoted, 95. 

Mochta, 179. 

Modan in Stirling, 155. 

Modesty of Irish pioneers, 22. 

Moengal, 81, 82. 

Molaisse, 140. 

"Molossian hounds," 266. 



355 



Ind 



ex 



Molurg in Lismore, 155. 

Mon. Germ. Hist., cited, 60, 96, 168, 

169. 
Monasterboice, 35. 
Monasteries, Irish, 36; in Wales, 

181-186; founded by Aidan, 219- 

224; double, 221, 223-224. 
Monasticism, difference in, 46-48. 
Mone, Quellensammlung der badischen 

Landesgeschichte, cited, 60. 
Monkwearmouth, 271, 273. 
Monmouth, 172. 
Monnier, Alcuin et Charlemagne, 

cited, 273; quoted, 47. 
Montalembert, testimony of, 18; 

Monks of the West, quoted, 194- 

195. _ 
Montelius, quoted, 92. 
Montfaucon, 47. 
Montgomeryshire, 171. 



"Monumenta Moguntina," cited, 252. 

Moohar on eastern coasts, 155. 

Moray, 316. 

Morini's life of Cathaldus, cited, 54. 

Morrigan, war-goddess, 120. 

Moville, 3, 35 ; Columcille at, 123. 

Mug Eime, 176. 

Mugeime, cited, 174. 

Mugeor Ua More, 43. 

Mull, 133. 

Mun in Argyle, 155. 

Munro, Donald, 319. 

Munster, 115; kings of, 161; tribes 
in Wales, 170; Irishmen of, in 
south Wales and Cornish penin- 
sula, 161 ; Irish, distinguishing 
characteristics of, 162-163. 

Mura, on Columcille, 122. 

Music, taught by Irish, 21. 






N 



Nectarides, 165. 

Nennius, quoted, 158. 

Neo-Platonists, works of, in Ireland, 
39- 

Nesta, 297. 

New Grange, 281. 

Newbiggin, 224. 

Newman, Cardinal, 286; Historical 
Sketches, 43, 47, 95. 

Niall, reign marked beginning of 
epoch, 107; of the Nine Hostages, 
164, 166, 167, 168; King, descend- 
ants of, 334. 

Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, 
303. 

Nicolaus von Cues, y6. 

Nile Valley, Irish in, 10. 



Noli, Pater, 148. 

Norham, 221. 

North Britain, Hibernicizing of, 152 

156. 
Norman Invasion or Conquest of 

Ireland, note on, 74. 
Norman Conquest, socalled, of En 

gland, 294. 
North Wales, 170; Ogham inscription 

in, 171. 
Northumbria, 220, 243; influence and 

learning of, 270; connection wit 

Clonmacnois, 272. 
Notitia Dignitatum, 167. 
Notker Balbulus, 123. 
Nuneaton, 224. 



O 

O'Curry, Lectures, cited, 35; Man- 
ners and customs, cited, 41, 66, 
142. 

Odoacer, 72. 

CVDonovan, quoted, 175; Tribes and 
Customs of Hy Many, quoted, 298; 
cited, 310. 

356 



Offa, 214. 

Oftfor, 222. 

Ogham, 163; inscriptions, where 

found, 171-173, 188. 
"Ogygia," cited, 31. 
O'Hart, Irish Pedigrees, cited, 162, 

234, 307. 



Index 



Oisin (Ossian), poems of, 97, 158. 

Ollamh (ollave), 65. 

Olliol Olum, 141. 

Orgiall, 162. 

Origen, known to Irish, 40. 

O'Reilly, Irish Writers, cited, 42. 

Orkney Islands, 142, 189. 

Orosis, 291. 

Orosius, known to Irish, 39. 

Osbern, Vita S. Dunstani, cited, 184; 

of Canterbury, cited, 2JJ. 
Oslaf, 214. 
Oslar, 214. 



Ossianic Society, Trans., referred to, 

9, 67, 88. 
Oswald, king of Northumbria, 58, 

194, 206-208; and Aidan, 211-213; 

214-215, 242. 
Oswiedu, 214. 

Oswin, 58, 194; death of, 217, 225. 
Oswin's veneration for Aidan, 216- 

219. 
Oswy, 214, 226, 228, 234. 
Ovid, oldest manuscript, in Irish 

hand, 75. 
Oxford, 286, 295. 



P 



Paderborn, Vj. 

Pagan spirit in Christian Ireland, 96- 



Paris, 200. 

Parliament of Tara, 128; French es- 
tablishment of, 296-297. 

Partney, 255. 

Paschal controversy, 225, 230. 

Patrick, 158, 182. 

Pauli, Life of Alfred the Great, cited, 
276. 

Paulinus, cited, 54-55, 205, 221. 

Pavia, 81. 

Peada, 225, 226. 

Pelagius, 5, 25, 179, 180, 182. 

Pellegrinus, to Holy Land, 17-18. 

Pembrokeshire, Ogham inscriptions 
in, 171, 183. 

Penda, 205, 218, 225, 247; of Mercia, 
288. 

Penitentials, system of, originated, 
25-26. 

Peregesius of Priscian, 278. 

Peregrini, Irish, description of, 14, 

95- 
Perran, Zabuloe, 189. 
Perrone, founded by Fursa, 15; Cel- 

lan, abbot of, 258. 
Peter the Irishman, at University of 

Naples, 25. 
Petrie, Ecclesiastical Architecture, 

cited, 54, 133- 
Petroc, 189. 
Petrockstow, 189. 

357 



Piacenza, 81. 

Piala, 181. 

Picardy, 241. 

Piers the Plowman, 296. 

Pilgrims, 19-20. 

Pila, 201. 

Pinkerton, Enquiry, quoted, 21 ; cited, 

122. 
Piran, 189. 

Pizigani, map of, 278. 
Plato, Irish familiar with, 39. 
Philosophy, Irish cultivation of, 69. 
Photius, 68, 70. 
Plechelm, 56. 

Plummer's Bede, cited, 183. 
Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, cited, 

88, 136. 
Pope Leo, known to Irish, 39. 
Porthmawr, 177. 
Posidonius, cited, 89. 
Potentin, abbot of Coutances, 15. 
Power of the Gael in Britain, 175- 

178. 
Prince Cummuscaeg, 180. 
Priscian, known to Irish, 39, 72; 

Peregesius of, 278. 
Proceedings Roy. Irish Acad., cited, 
' 168. 

Psellus, 70. 

Psalms, Finnan's copy of, 127. 
Ptolemy on Ireland, cited, 89. 
Pyramids, measured by Irish 

(Fidelis), 11, 17. 



Inde 



Q 



Quadrivium, 37. 

u., Untersuchungen zur 



lateinischen Philologic des Mit- 
telalters, cited, 55. 



R 



Radnorshire, 171. 

Radstow, 189. 

Ragallach, 59. 

Raine, cited, 268. 

Rait, Professor, cited, 314. 

Rashdall, University, cited, 295. 

Rath Croghan, 168. 

Rebais, library of, 74. 

Red Sea, explored by Irish, 11. 

Redwald, 205. 

Rees, Lives of Cambro-British 
Saints, cited, 183. 

Reeves, Life of St. Columba, cited, 
51, 108; ed. Adamnan's work on 
Columcille, 122; Life of St. Col- 
umba, by Adamnan, cited, 142 ; 
Proceedings of the Royal Irish 
Acad., cited, 145; cited, 147; Life 
of St. Columba, cited, 154; Adam- 
nan, cited, 202; Genealogical Table, 
cited, 234. 

Registrum Epistolarum, quoted, 70- 
71 ; cited, 230. 

Registrum Prioratus S. Andreae, 
cited, 318. 

Registrum Vetus de Aberbrothoc, 
cited, 318. 

Regulus of Orkney, 143. 

Reichenau, 10, 183. 

Reid, Archaeology, quoted, 92. 

Remi, father of pilgrims, 19. 

Remiremont, 223, 241. 

Repton, 224. 

Rhabanus Maurus, 59, 68, 79, 148, 
179. 

Rheims, Irish in, II. 

Rheinau, 10, 183. 

Rhys Ap Tudor, 397. 

Rhys, The Welsh People, cited, 159; 
Revue Celtique, cited, 178; Early 
Britain, cited, 329. 



Riada, 114. 

Richard Cceur de Lion, 296. 

Richard de Clare, 297. 

Richard II, 298. 

Richborough, 178. 

Richey, Short History, cited, 41. 

Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, 
cited, 89; First Shaping of the 
Cuchulain Saga, cited, 89; Who 
Were the Romans? cited, 89. 

Rimner, Ancient Stone Crosses of 
England, cited, 189. 

Robertson, Scotland under Her Early 
Kings, cited, 314; quoted, 326. 

Rodalgus, 247. 

Roger de Hoveden, cited, 250, 258. 

Roman civilization, decline and fall 
of, 27-28; learning, in Ireland, 102- 
103 ; Empire, Irish colonies in, 103 ; 
aid to Britain, 167; missionaries to 
English, 199. 

Romans in Ireland, 89. 

Romanus (Ronan?), 228. 

Rome, Irish in, 11 ; Celts in, 89; Irish 
at, 275. 

Romulus Augustus, 72. 

Ronan, 225, 227-228. 

Ro-sualt, 64. 

Royal Irish Academy at Dublin, col- 
lection of, 91. 

Ruadhan, conflict of Diarmuid with, 
108. 

Ruaidhri Ua Concobhair, King, 3, 332. 

Ruadri, 188. 

Rudpert, 19. 

Ruffmianus, 205. 

Rumold, 16. 

Ruthwell Cross, 281, 282. 



358 



Inde 



x 



St. Abb's Head, 221. 

St. Aidan, 206; rule of, 284. 

St. Ailbe, 177. 

St. Algise (France), 247. 

St. Andrew's monastery, 263. 

St. Anskar, 211. 

St. Augustine, 178. 

St. Balthere's, 221. 

St. Bee's Head, 185. 

St. Begha (Bee), 20. 

St. Benedict of Aniane, 264; rule of, 

284. 
St. Bernard, quoted, 6; Vita Malach, 

quoted, 99. 
St. Brendan the Navigator, 278. 
St. Brigid, 185, 219. 
St. Burian, 188. 
St. Cadoc, 183. 
St. Cadroc, 179. 
St. Columba, importance of church 

of, 25-26, 206. 
St. Columcille, 
St. Cuthbert, 221. 
St. Cuthbert's Cross, 281. 
St. David's of Menevia, 177, 182-183, 

276. 
St. Dunstan, 19, 183. 
St. Eata, 19. 
St. Eligius, 303. 
St. Eloi, 19. 

St. Fiachra (Fiacre), 19. 
St. Fingar, Acts of, cited, 181. 
St. Fintan, 177. 
St. Gall, 10; founded by Ceallach 

(Gallus), 15, 21; Monk of, quoted, 

47; library of, 74; monks of, 80; 

lay education at, 81-82; plan of 

monastery, 81-83. 
St. Gall Priscian, 188. 
St. Gobain, 247. 
St. Guthlac, 198. 

St. Hieronymi Epist., cited, 168. 
St. Hieronymus, Columbanus on, 71. 
St. Hilda, 222. 
St. la, 189. 
St. Ives, 189. 
St. Jerome, note on Ireland, 31 ; Com- 



ment on Galatians, quoted, 72; 
cited, 168. 

St. Kebi, 183. 

St. Levan, 188. 

St. Livinus, 188. 

St. Malachy, 43. 

St. Martin, shrine of, 19. 

St. Martin's church, 281. 

St. Mary's, monastery of, 224. 

St. Michael, 17. 

St. Molaise of Devenish, 129. 

St. Oswin, cross of, 282. 

St. Patrick, importance of church of, 
25-26; note on Ireland, 31, 53, 118; 
life of, by Adamnan, 154, 167, 184, 
185, 231-232. 

St. Peter's, abbey of, 205; Church at 
Bamborough, 213. 

St. Piran, 188-189. 

St. Quentin, Mont, 16. 

St. Tressan at Rheims, 17. 

St. Ursanne, hospital at, 18. 

St. Wulstan, 309. 

Salzburg, Irish in, 11 ; Ferghill bishop 
of, 80. 

S arias Chormaic, ed. Stokes, quoted, 
163. 

Sassenach and Gael in Britain, 157- 
160. 

Scandinavia, Irish in, 17. 

Scot Dalriada, 136, 139. 

Scotia explained, 89; used in con- 
trast to Hibernia, 57; Major, 115; 
Minor, 115. 

Scotland explained, 8; Irish first in, 
8-9; Irish in, 20; Irish kings in, 
115; twofold Irish invasion and 
conquest of, 102-104; Irish military 
conquest of, 113-115; Irish in, 154- 
156; Ogham inscriptions in, 171; 
English slaves in, 305; Irish in, 
314-333 ; theory of expulsion of 
Irish from, 314-315; Irish tongue 
in, 315-320; French speech and in- 
fluence in, 320-323; beginning of 
English language in, 322-323 ; Irish 
names and surnames in, 323-329; 



359 



Ind 



ex 



expulsion of English from, 325- 
326; Anglicization of, 328; Irish 
place-names in, 329-331 ; Irish 
kings of, 336. 

Scott, De Unione Regnorum Brit- 
ainniae, cited, 315. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 333. 

Scotus, explained, 8, 9. 

Screen, founded by, 127. 

Sechnall, poems of, 31. 

Seckingen on the Rhine, 60, 183. 

Sedulius Scotus, 5 ; works of, 31 ; 
known to Irish, 39; Scotus, col- 
lection of manuscript excerpts, 76, 
178, 180, 187, 188, 233, 279, 285. 

Segenus, 231. 

Seginus, 209. 

Senan, 53, 220. 

Sencleithe, 302. 

Seneca, known to Irish, 39. 

Sherborne, 250, 269. 

Sidnaceaster (Stow), 255. 

Sidonius Apollinaris, 210. 

Sigebert, 225, 226, 240-241, 245. 

Sigeric, Archbishop, 278. 

Sigfrid, 221, 271. 

Simeon of Durham, chronicles, 270 j 
cited, 284, 290. 

Sigisbert, founds Abbey of Dissentis, 
16. 

Silures, 174. 

Silva Gadelica, cited, 64, 180. 

Singularites, quoted, 71. 

Sixth century, Ireland of, 104-110. 

Slavery, English, 301-313; English, 
prohibitions against, 304; English, 
references to in Irish literature, 
307-308. 

Slaves, English, in Ireland, 301-313. 

.Skene, Celtic Scotland, referred to, 
9; quoted and cited, 36, 49, 51. 

Slane, 57-59- 

Sleswick, 198. 

Small Primer, cited, 41. 

Smith, E. A., quoted, 92. 

Smollett, Tobias, cited, 333. 

Soissons, 223. 

Solway Firth, 189. 



South Saxons, 244. 

South Shields, 224. 

Somerset, 159, 170, 172, 184, 188, 276- 
277. 

South Wales, 170. 

Spain, Greco-Roman culture in, 2. 

Speckled Book (Leabar Breac), on 
Columcille, 123; cited, 140; of Dun 
Doighre, 183. 

Spenser, View of the State of Ire- 
land, quoted, 29; quoted, 53. 

Staigue Fort, 281. 

"Statutes of Kilkenny," 298. 

Stephen, King of England, 115. 

Stevenson, Bede, cited, 228. 

Stilicho, Flavius, 167. 

Stokes, Anecdota Oxoniensia, cited, 

Si. 

Strabo, Walafrid, cited, 81 ; Life of 

Blaithmac, quoted, 88; quoted, 96; 

on Columcille, 123; cited, 136; 

Poetae Latini, cited, 234, 278. 
Strassburg, 57. 
Strathclyde, 186. 
Strathearn, 242. 
Stokes, Roy. I. Acad., Proceedings, 

quoted, 231. 
Stuarts, 162. 
Stubb's Dunstan, cited, 96; cited, 232, 

268 ; Diet, of Chr. Biog., cited, 271 ; 

Select Charters, cited, 304. 
Suadbar, 187, 188. 
Sulger, 55, 61. 
Sussex, 270. 
Sweetman, Calendar of Documents, 

cited, 93. 
Swords, founded by Columcille, 127. 
Symeon of Durham, ed. Arnold, 

cited, 274 ; Historia Re gum, quoted, 

305 ; cited, 322, 325 ; Historia, cited, 

329; cited, 330. 
Synod of Armagh, on slavery, 310. 
S3mod of Drumceat, 66-67. 
Synod of Pincanhalth, 290. 
Synod of Whitby, 230-232, 240; not 

end of Irish influence in England, 

262, 284. 



360 



Ind 



ex 



Tacitus on Ireland, cited, 89; Life of 
Agricola, quoted, 103. 

Tadcaster, 222. 

Tailtenn, 66, 112; synod at, 129. 

Tain, cited, 89, 120. 

Taine, Hist, of Eng. Lit., cited or 
quoted, 288, 289, 290, 291-292. 

Talorcan, 214. 

Tara, 66, 102; cursing of, by Colum- 
cille, 108, 112; Parliament of, 128; 
Parliament of, Adamnan at, 152, 
158. 

Tara Brooch, 12, 74. 

Taranto, Cathaldus in, 18. 

Tatwine, Archbishop, 252. 

Taylor, John, Pennyles Pilgrimage, 
quoted, 317. 

Tenth century, work of Irish in En- 
gland, 277. 

Tertullian, 181. 

Tewdor ap Rhain, 174. 

Thanet, 200. 

Theodore, 3, 224, 232, 258, 260; and 
"Molossian Hounds" at Canter- 
bury, 264-268, 271, 285, 286, 304. 

Theodosius (the elder), 165-166. 

Theodulph of Orleans, 80. 

Thesaurus Palaeohibemicus, referred 
to, 4. 

Thomond, school of, 35. 

Thomas, Bishop, 241. 

Thorneyburn, 224. 

"Three Fragments" of Irish Annals, 
quoted, 214-215. 



Tigerneach, cited, 114, 154, 178, 202; 
quoted, 215, 272. 

Tilbury, 227, 249. 

Tir Conaill, wealth of literati in, 67. 

Tirowen, 162. 

Todd, ed. War of the Gaels with the 
Galls, cited, 145 ; Proc. Roy. I. 
Acad., quoted, 266. 

Torna-Eices, poem of, 168. 

Tostig, 288-289. 

Toul, Irish in, II, 17. 

Tours, Irish in, II. 

Traube, on Irish libraries, 76; cited, 
188; Perrona Scotorum, Abhand- 
lungen der Bay. Akad., cited, 260. 

Trias Thaum., cited, 142. 

Tribes and Customs of Hy-Many, 
cited, 309. 

Trivium, 27- 

Tropic of Cancer, Irish at, 189. 

Trouveres, 121. 

Trumbert, Bishop, cross of, 282. 

Trumhere, 226, 248, 271. 

Trumwine's Cross, 282. 

Tuda, 234. 

Tunberht, 271. 

Turin, 81. 

Turner, History of Philosophy, 
quoted, 24; Hist, of the Anglo- 
Saxons, cited, 288, 289. 

Tutilo (Tuthail) of St. Gall, 21-22. 

Twelve Apostles of Erin, 105, 124. 

Tyrconnell, founded, 107, 162. 

Tyrone, founded, 107. 



U 



Ua Domnaill, 148. 

Ua Dubhlaighe (O'Dooley), family 

of, 307. 
Ua Ceallaigh (O'Kelly) family, 309- 

310. 
Ua Clerigh, Ireland to the Norman 

Conquest, cited, 185. 
Ui Liathain, 173. 
Ui Maine, 309-310. 



Ultan, 16, 21; modesty of, 23, 244, 

247, 258, 274. 
Ulster, kingdom of, formed, 107, 115; 

kings of, 161 ; Irishmen of, in 

North Britain and North Wales, 

161. 
Ulster J. of Arch., cited, 192. 
Urbs Coludi, 221. 
Ursicinus, at Mont Terrible, 15; 



361 



Inde 



x 



founds hospital at St. Ursanne, 18. 
Ursgeula, Irish, iio-iii. 
Usnach, 66. 
Ussher, Britannicarum Ecclesiarum 

Antiquitates, referred to, 9. 



Ussher, note on Ireland, 30; cited, 
34; Relig. Ant. Irish, cited, 192; 
cited, 202. 



V 



Valentia, 166. 
Valentinian, 165. 
Verdun, Irish in, 11, 17. 
Vespasiania, Irish Scots in, 113. 
Victorius of Aquitane, Columbanus 

on, 70-71. 
Virgilius of Salzburg, 22; modesty 

of, 23. 



Vision of Adamnan, 154. 

Visions of Fursa, 246-247. 

Vita Oswaldi, Reginald of Durham, 

Simeon of Durham, cited, 215. 
Vita S. Fursae, cited, 245. 
Vortigern, 159. 
Vulgate of St. John, first translation 

of, in Ireland, 127. 



W 



Waldebert, ruled Luxeuil, 23. 

Wales, Irish rule in, 9, 59; Irish col- 
ony, 103; Irish conquest of, 159- 
160; Irish in, 161, 163; never en- 
tirely under Roman rule, 166-167; 
medieval Irish colony, 170-174; 
Ogham inscriptions in, 171 ; clan 
names in, 173; Irish in, 175-189; 
end of Irish rule in, 178-179 ; Chris- 
tianity in, 181 ; Irish foundations 
in, 181-186; monasteries in, 181- 
186; Easter in, 187; first knowl- 
edge of history of, 187. 

Wallace, 316. 

Walter of Coventry, Memoriale, 
cited, 322. 

Walton-le-dale, 224. 

Wandresgisel founds Fontenelles, 18. 

Ward, Vita Rumoldi, cited, 78, 272. 

Wardlaw Manuscript, cited, 317. 

Ware, Irish Writers, cited, 42, 220. 

Wareham, 250, 269. 

Waterford, Ogham inscriptions in, 

171. 

Watling Street, 178. 

Wattenbach, Ulster Journal of 

Archeology, cited, 83. 
Wearmouth, Adamnan at, 152. 
Webb, quoted, 76. 
Welsh, language, Irish words in, 178; 



church, 187; Triads, 201; marriage 

of Norman-French with, 297. 
Wenlock, 224. 
Wessex, 194; Maelduf and other 

Irishmen in, 250-253. 
West Saxons, Irish mission among, 

241-243, 244. 
Wexford Haven, 177. 
Wexford Harbor, 185. 
Westminster Abbey, stone beneath 

throne at, Irish, 135. 
Wharton, Anglia Sacra, cited, 277. 
Whitby, 10, 221-223, 225; Synod of, 

229, 271, 273. 
Wilfrid of York, 57, 220; (2nd), 222, 

229; archbishop of York, 232; 

Bishop, 248; letter to, 257, 264, 271. 
William of Malmesbury, cited and 

quoted, 185, 206, 240, 250, 251, 253, 

259, 261, 276; Anglia Sacra, cited, 

303, 305, 306, 309; De Gestis 

Regum, cited, 304, 305, 309; Gesta 

Pontificum, cited, 258. 
William of Orange, 299. 
William of Newburgh, cited, 325. 
William the Lion, 323, 325. 
Willibrord, 56. 
Wilts, 172. 
Wimborne, 223, 224. 
Winchester, 242. 



362 



Index 



Wini, 243. 




Wright, Thomas, 276. 


Wiro, founds St. Peter's monastery, 


Writing of the Tain, quoted, 168. 


16, 17. 




Wyntoun, Orygynale Crony kil, 318- 


Wittering, church of, 281. 




319; Andrew, 322; Orygynale 


Wodenysburgh, battle of, 202. 


Cronykil, cited, 333. 


Wood, Hist, and Antiquit., 


quoted, 


Wulfstan, sermon ad Anglos, 292- 


69. 




293. 


Workman, Evolution of 


Monas- 


Wulstan, Latin life of, 305. 


ticism, cited, 223. 








X 




"Xenia," 134. 




Y 


York, 3, 272, 273. 




Yorkshire, 205. 



Zeuss, 72; Grammatica Celtica, 160. I 12, 48, 56; cited, 95-96; Pelagius 
Zimmer, Preussiche Jahrbilcher, 7, I in Ireland, 162, 280. 



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